


Mystery Kids: Omens

by 2hoots



Category: Coraline (2009), Gravity Falls, ParaNorman (2012), Psychonauts (Video Games)
Genre: Mystery Kids
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-03-31 17:10:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 40,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13979724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2hoots/pseuds/2hoots
Summary: It’s been six years since the first summer they all met in Gravity Falls. They aren’t really the “Mystery Kids” any more - real life got in the way of that, but Norman still considers them all his friends. So when, one night, Dipper stops messaging him out of the blue - cuts off all communication - it’s cause for alarm.That was nearly three months ago. Now Norman and Mabel must follow the trail of clues Dipper’s left behind in order to track him down. But not everything is as it seems; Norman's dreams warn of an oncoming storm, and even those closest to him have secrets to hide. They're going to need to become more than that ragtag band of kids from so many summers ago, if they want to unravel this mystery before it consumes them.





	1. Eight of Cups

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Norman meets with an old friend.

The door to the coffee shop chimed as Norman pushed it open. He slid inside, aware of the blast of winter air rushing in with him, and started untangling his scarf from around his neck as it swung shut behind him.

The shop was blessedly warm, and he stood massaging his numb fingers for a moment, taking it in. It was cosy, and kind of homey in a way that was trying very hard to appear nonchalant about it.  The tables were dark wood, worn with age, and the lamps hanging over them cast a soft, hazy yellow light. There was the smell of something baking in the air, and Norman was abruptly reminded that in the rush that morning he’d forgotten about breakfast.

He joined the queue behind a couple with nice-looking shirts and impeccable hair, and tried not to feel out of place. The shop was pretty quiet - Norman figured weekday mornings were kinda slow - and he tuned out to the low chatter and the buzz of the espresso machine. There was a hissing noise, the sound of milk being frothed - occasionally the clank of what sounded like an oven door - someone calling out above the low clatter of the shop -

“‘Scuse me, mister, were you gonna order, or…?”

Oh, hold on a second.

 

Norman looked up at the person behind the counter. They were leaning forward expectantly, one hand on the hip of their apron. The other couple were gone.

“Sorry!” Norman stumbled forward, giving the barista an apologetic smile. “I, uh, zoned out there for a second.” He ran a hand through his hair, wincing slightly at how stiff it felt. “Late night.”

“Sure.” The barista cocked one delicately plucked eyebrow. “So, your order?”

Norman resisted the urge to apologise again. Instead, he said, “I’m actually looking for someone who works here. Her name is-”

“ _ Norman! _ ”

 

He’d recognise that voice anywhere. Norman’s gaze slid along the bar, and when he found its source his face broke into a wide grin. Mabel returned it from behind a glass case of pastries, and wound her way past her coworkers to the till.

“Lemme take this one, Val,” she said, patting the other barista on the shoulder. “Me ‘n’ Norm here go  _ waaay  _ back.”

“He’s all yours, Mabel,” Val replied with a shrug, sidling out of the way as Mabel did her best to bring Norman into an awkward hug over the counter.

 

“It’s good to see you too, Mabel,” Norman wheezed as she inadvertently crushed his neck. He patted her on the back, and when her hold was relinquished he straightened back up, feeling somewhat dishevelled.

“How have you  _ been _ , my dude?” Mabel beamed. She reached up to pat him on the cheek, then recoiled with a yelp. “ _ Oof _ , that’s a chilly one. Tell you what, hot drink first,  _ then _ BFF catch up. What can I get you? On the house.”

“That’s OK, I - You don’t have to -” Norman paused, chewing his lip. “Actually, a coffee would be great,” he relented, and Mabel’s grin got impossibly brighter.

  
  


They took a table over by the window. Mabel slung her apron over the back of one of the chairs, and as Norman pulled the other one she set down a tray with two steaming mugs and a tempting-looking pastry.

“My treat,” she said, sliding it across the table towards him. “I’m pretty sure I could feel every one of your ribs when I hugged you back there.”

“You sound like my  _ mom _ ,” Norman laughed, but he took the pastry gratefully and shoved half of it in his mouth as Mabel stirred her hot chocolate.

“So how have you  _ been _ , Normaduke?” she gushed, as Norman licked syrup off his fingers. “I feel like it’s been ages. How’s life up in Montreal?”

“Good,” said Norman, curling his fingers around his coffee cup and letting the warmth sink in. “It’s good. Cold, but you get used to wearing five scarves in the winter pretty quick.”

Mabel made a face. “Bleh, I can  _ imagine _ . Portland winters are cold enough for me as- _ is _ , thank you very much.”

“Sweater season is longer if it’s cold,” Norman offered, and Mabel rolled her eyes.

“Norman,  _ please _ , sweater season is twelve months a year because sweaters are  _ eternal _ . You better be- _ lieve _ that as soon as I get home it’s bye-bye this -” she tugged at the collar of her work uniform - “And hellooo sweaters.”

“Plural?” Norman chuckled.

“Oh, yeah,” Mabel said, “Sometimes I just pile ‘em all up and bury myself in the yarn-y goodness. Make a little hamster nest, y’know.”

She gave him a gleaming smile that didn’t help Norman figure out whether or not she was joking.

 

“You’ve had your braces off,” he noted instead, bringing his cup to his lips. “When did that happen?”

“Last summer!” Mabel tipped her head first this way, then the other, showing off two rows of perfectly straight teeth. “I still have to wear these little plastic covers over them at night, but Mabel is a braceface no longer!”

Her smile faded a little. “It’s too bad you couldn’t make it. Coraline’s exams finished early so she came down for a whole  _ month _ , it was a blast!” She glanced over her shoulder, then leaned forward and continued in a lower voice, “ _ Raz _ even stayed over for a few days!”

“You don’t say,” Norman mused. “It really  _ has _ been forever since we saw those two.”

“He’s, like, a proper secret agent now,” Mabel said conspiratorially. “He had a badge and everything.”

“Black suit?”

“Nah. He was all, ‘Mabel, good agents don’t go around  _ looking _ like agents’, but I was like, well, you sure like to show off that dorky green turtleneck though, huh?”

Norman snorted. “That’s pretty rich coming from  _ you _ , sweater queen.”

Mabel gasped in faux outrage, before giving Norman a playful shove, and he couldn’t help but laugh.

 

They sat in silence for a while. Norman finished his pastry with enthusiasm, and was savouring his coffee when Mabel spoke up again.

“He really misses you, you know.”

She was staring at the surface of her drink, turning the cup slowly in her hands. At the sound of Norman setting his mug back down on the table, she glanced up, and their eyes met. “Dipper, I mean. I think he’d been really hoping you’d make it over the summer.”

Norman turned to look out the window, and from the corner of his eye he saw Mabel’s eyes widen. “Oh, I - I’m not tryna, like, guilt trip you over it, Norm, really. It’s cool. I just - he talks about you a lot, and I know you two were kind of…”

She pursed her lips like she was trying to find a word to finish the sentence, but gave up after a moment and let it trail off. Norman turned back to the table, his eyes lingering around Mabel’s elbow.

 

“He talks about me?” he ventured, and Mabel nodded.

“Not in a gossipy way,” she clarified. “It’s just, you know, he’ll be reading an article or we’ll be scouting somewhere out and he’ll say, ‘Hey, I wonder what Norman would -’, or ‘If Norman were here, we could -’, or ‘This reminds me of the time when Norman and I’ et cetera, et cetera.” She gave a wry smile. “Like I said, it just feels like it’s been ages since we saw you. I bet he’s in your inbox all the time, but -”

“He’s not,” Norman said, and Mabel cut herself off mid-sentence, blinking in astonishment. “I actually don’t think I’ve heard from him in - two, nearly three months. I don’t even know where he is right now.”

 

He shifted in his chair, then met Mabel’s gaze with a furrowed brow. “That’s actually why I came to find you.”

 

* * *

 

 

It was a few hours later when he and Mabel finally left the shop. She’d managed to get the afternoon off, but (she apologised as they made their way through the busy Portland streets) she couldn’t exactly up and leave in the middle of a shift unless it was an emergency.

“And I don’t think it  _ is _ ,” she’d frowned, pulling her plaited scarf tight against the biting wind, “I think it’s just a Dipper Weirdness Event, but…”

Norman hadn’t minded the wait; he’d bought himself a sandwich to pass the time, and at about half past eleven he’d moved tables to sit with a ghost who’d drifted in. She had a seat near the bar, floating about an inch or so above it, and was watching one of the baristas - he looked about the same age as Mabel, with dark skin and hair and a kind, doughy face - with a wistful expression.

( _ “He never had great self-esteem,” she’d sighed, chin propped up with one hand, “And when I, y’know - he took it really hard. I’ve been coming here every day to check on him.” Norman had nodded, and patted her hand, and tried to avoid looking at the place where the car had hit and her ribs stretched open like reaching fingers. _ )

Norman drove the two of them to Mabel’s place in his old jeep. It was a run-down car with shitty mileage, but despite explaining as much to her Mabel still seemed unduly impressed. Norman put it down to the fact that she didn’t drive - “I only really work on holidays and weekends, the rest of the time I’ve got college,” she explained, eagerly running her hands over the cracked pleather of the doorframe, “so I can’t really cover a car.”

“This old rustbucket belonged to one of my dad’s friends,” Norman told her, shifting gear as they rumbled round a cul-de-sac corner. “When I moved north I needed something that could handle the roads in winter, with enough boot space to lug all my film equipment around.”

“Does it have a name?”

 

Norman rolled to a stop at the side of the road, pulled up the handbrake with a creak, and turned to give Mabel an odd look. She held his gaze, and wiggled her eyebrows for emphasis. “ _ Tons _ of people name their cars, Norm. You know, like… Jessica!”

“I’m  _ not _ ,” Norman clicked his seatbelt free, “naming my car  _ Jessica _ .”

Mabel slid out of the passenger door and pouted at him from across the roof of the car.

“Jessica’s a great name!”

“It’s a  _ people _ name, Mabel, you can’t give cars people names. Don’t ask me why, it’s just weird!”

 

Mabel was in a house share with three other students, and the kitchen definitely had a lived-in feel (not that Norman, of all people, was about to judge). Mabel filled the kettle, and spooned several heaps of a colourful-looking leaf mixture into two teacups whilst trying to sell Norman on the merits of naming your car. Norman tried not to look suspicious as he studied the resulting garnet-coloured liquid. 

She kept up the discussion as the two of them made their way upstairs, pausing to greet a housemate who’d poked their head out the door to see what all the noise was about (they looked about as sleep-deprived as Norman felt, and quickly ducked back into their room). It was only until they were both safely inside her own room that she pushed shut the door, let her shoulders sag and turned to look at Norman with a serious expression.

“We gotta get to the bottom of this, Norman,” she said, clearing a space for her cup and saucer among the colourful stationery on her desk and flopping onto her bed. Norman did a brief scan of the room - the furniture wasn’t really Mabel’s style, but she’d made the space her own with posters and a string of buttercup-yellow fairy lights above her bed - and decided the small office chair at her desk was probably the safest place for him to sit.

 

“Nothing’s happened recently, right?” he ventured as the chair took his weight with a groan. “I mean - there hasn’t been a sudden alien invasion, or a zombie plague outbreak or something?”

Mabel swung her feet and hmm-ed loudly - Norman could see that her face was scrunched in a tight frown. “He hasn’t  _ told _ me about anything like that, but - that doesn’t really answer your question, I guess.”

Norman gave her a tired smile. “So much for the days when he’d babble on about monsters to anyone who’d listen, huh?”

“I blame Ford.” Mabel wriggled upright on the bed with a grunt, propping herself up with her arms. “No offense to him, but he’s always been a bit of a coo-coo conspiracy nut, and I think some of it has rubbed off on Dipper.”

She spun her finger next to her forehead, and Norman stifled a laugh. “Ok, so no leads there. But you still hear from him, right?”

“Sure,” Mabel shrugged. “I mean, not that often, but yeah. I don’t know the last time we had a proper chat, but before last month he used to message me about every week or so.”

 

Norman took a moment to digest this information. “Really? That infrequently? I kinda assumed you two would be, like…”

“Chatting every day?” Mabel gave a chuckle, but it rang hollow. “Nah, Dip’s not that talkative nowadays. I used to message him a whole bunch, but he’d only reply a couple times a month, so… eventually, I just kinda stopped. We still meet up every summer, of course, and we visit our parents most Christmases if we can help it, but Dipper wasn’t around this year - he said something came up, and with Dipper, you just gotta kinda… accept it at face value! I’m sure he’s got some kinda super-important mission that means he can’t take a few days off to come see his twin sister, right?!”

 

She sucked in a deep breath, and puffed her cheeks like she had more to say, but all that came out was a long sigh. She deflated, leaning her elbows across her legs and glancing at Norman with a tight grin. “Yeesh, listen to miss  _ lemons _ over here. I must sound super bitter, huh?”

Norman didn’t really know what to say. He gave a timid nod, and Mabel laced her hands together.

“I’m sorry, I don’t wanna dump all this dumb negative stuff on you. I mean,  _ you’re _ the one he stopped talking to! Geeze, Mabel,  _ selfish _ , much?” She shook her head, grabbed the teacup from the desk and took a swig from it, and jumped to her feet, forcing a grin on her face. “Don’t worry, Norm-o, I know just the way to help us get to the bottom of this!”

Norman nodded again, glad he hadn’t needed to mention that - prior to the sudden cutoff - Dipper had been messaging him nearly every day.

 

Mabel strode over to her closet, and spent several seconds rooting through it before pulling out a small case. It was a dull camo green, and as she sat back down on the bed with it across her lap Norman noticed the wires attached to the back, leading back into the darkness of her closet.

“This is  _ supposed _ to only be an emergency contact measure,” Mabel said, and Norman heard a  _ click-click _ as she fiddled with it before pushing the lid up. “But I’ve also used it to tell him happy birthday before, and this is  _ way _ more of an emergency than that.”

 

Curiosity getting the better of him, Norman rose from the chair and moved to stand next to Mabel, craning his neck to get a better look at what was inside.

“Is this… a radio?”

“It’s basically a low-tech landline phone,” Mabel replied, tugging an antenna up out the box. “Ford made some modifications to it. Dipper told me once about how it hijacks some kinda signals and blah blah nerd stuff, but basically it’s supposed to be super-secure. He went on this whole  _ thing _ about a year ago on how mobiles can’t be trusted, so now this is one of the only ways to call him.”

 

Norman watched, impressed, as Mabel tweaked dials, pressed buttons, and crooned in triump as the unit suddenly lit up. She plucked the reciever from its alcove and held it up to Norman with a grin. “Want to do the honors?”

Norman’s face suddenly felt extremely hot. He stammered as Mabel waggled the reciever at him, reaching out to take it with hands that seemed to be unreasonably sweaty for the temperature of the room. 

His eyes met with Mabel’s - her hand was hovering above a single button on the console, lit up with a hard orange glow. She was hesitating, watching his face for some kind of a signal. He held his breath for a beat, then nodded.

 

That was all Mabel needed. She pressed the button with a swift motion, and Norman heard the reciever hiss to life. Swallowing, he pressed it to his ear, listening as the buzz of white noise warped into a crackly dial tone, and then -

A click. Someone had picked up.

Norman licked his lips. “D- Dipper? Are you there?”

For a second, there was nothing except the faint hiss of dead air on the other end. Then:

“ _ Five. _ ”

That wasn’t Dipper’s voice.

“ _ Seventeen. Zero. Nine. Seventeen. Zero. Nine. _ ”

Something must have shown on his face, because Mabel was on her feet now, peering closely at him.

“ _ What? _ ” she whispered, leaning in. “ _ Is he there? _ ”

“ _ Six. Twenty-two. Zero.” _

“ _ It’s - numbers _ ,” Norman mouthed. “ _ It’s just numbers! What the heck!” _

_ “Two. Twenty.” _

“Gimme that,” Mabel said, making a wild grab at the reciever. She held it to her ear, and Norman watched her eyes slowly grow wider and wider. Eventually, she thrust the receiver back at him.

“Ok,  _ this _ is weird.”

 

Norman took it in his hand and held it out, stooping slightly so his head was at the same height as Mabel’s. The two of them crowded in and listened as it rattled off more of the numbers in that calm, eerie voice:

“ _...Zero. Six. Five. Fourteen. Nineteen. Five. Twenty-two. Eleven.” _

Then there was a burst of static that made Norman flinch away from the receiver - and then, nothing.

He looked at Mabel, scanning her face for clues to what the  _ hell _ was going on. She was still listening closely to the receiver, befuddled expression gone in place of one of concentration.

“Is it - ” he started, but Mabel cut him off, shushing him aggressively.

“ _ Listen, it’s started back up, _ ” she muttered, beckoning him closer. True to her word, that same artificial-sounding voice was reading off numbers again.

 

_ “Five. Seventeen. Zero. Nine. Seventeen. Zero. Nine. _ ”

Something about that rang familiar with Norman. “Those are the same ones,” he said slowly, “the same numbers it started with. It’s repeating a sequence.”

Something like recognition flashed across Mabel’s face. She pulled away abruptly, hands scrabbling over her desk. Norman saw her snatch up a piece of blank paper and a fuzzy pink pen with an urgent haste.

 

“Bring that here,” she ordered, and as Norman lifted the receiver up to her the listened for a moment - then began scribbling frantically over the paper.

“It’s - a code,” she explained distractedly, pausing to scratch through a number and replace it with another. “It’s gotta be.”

 

They went through the sequence three more times before Mabel was confident she had everything right. Hanging the receiver back up with a ‘ _ clunk _ ’, she held the paper out at arm’s length and sighed loudly, puffing out her cheeks.

She laid it on the desk, and she and Norman crowded around it, staring intently at the incoherent series of numbers.

“It’s  _ gotta _ be a code,” Mabel repeated, threading her hands through her hair. “Dipper wouldn’t set something like that up for nothing.”

“Why the secrecy, though? What’s wrong with a regular answer-phone message?” Norman paused. “Who else has access to this connection?” he said, slowly.

“I dunno.” Mabel was clenching her scalp, elbows on the desk as she hunched over the code. “He always said it was ‘secure’, whatever  _ that _ means, but I don’t know of anyone else with one of these receivers.”

 

Norman sat on the bed, deep in thought, as Mabel unburied a laptop from her desk and coaxed it to life. “Ok, number ciphers. Uh, first thing to do is probably rewrite it as letters, that’ll make it easier to work with.”

She pulled up a webpage and turned the screen to Norman, tapping it with a glittery pink nail. “The numbers don’t go higher than twenty-five, which means there’s a good chance they correspond to the letters of the alphabet, plus zeros for spaces. If we can convert them, that’ll make it easier to figure out what kind of cipher we’re looking at.”

She ran a hand through her hair, tugging it out of its ponytail as Norman’s eyes scanned over the cipher. “The other possibility is it’s coordinates, but the numbers don’t match up unless we’re looking for somewhere in the Arctic, which, uh, I hope not.”

“Alright,” Norman said. “Where do we start?”

 

They split the list of coded numbers between the two of them and sat in silence as they worked, hunched over what small desk space there was. Mabel was finished first, and when Norman finally looked up from his series of numbers she’d filled her paper with various scrawlings, glaring at them intently.

“We don’t have a cipher key,” she explained, “so this is probably brute-force-able, like an Atbash or a Caesar or something.”

“It’s a good thing I’ve got Detective Mabel on the case,” Norman chuckled as Mabel tapped away at her laptop. “I wouldn’t know where to start with this stuff.”

“Pshh, it’s nothing,” she said, tossing her head dismissively - though Norman didn’t miss the way the corners of her eyes crinkled with pride. “It’s all just stuff I learned on the job,” she continued, reaching across to tug the papers onto her lap. “After pulling so many all-nighters codebreaking with Dip, you kinda pick up a few things.” 

 

After putting the code through a few online decoders yielded nothing (“Worth a shot”, Mabel shrugged) they took to task breaking it by hand. Norman’s tea had long since cooled and the hour crawled late into the night before they made their first breakthrough, Norman suddenly bolting upright and grabbing his pen in a moment of frenetic energy.

“ _ Everything _ ! The word here is everything!”

After that, it all came together quickly, and the two of them stared in silence at the completed message:

 

GO TO THE PLACE WHERE EVERYTHING STARTED

 

The moment stretched out between them. When Mabel finally looked up, her face was set in determination.

“Gravity Falls,” she said. “It’s gotta be.”

 

* * *

 

Norman slept poorly that night.

Part of it was Mabel’s couch - it was old and worn, and he had to tuck his limbs in awkwardly to fit, sleeping bag draped over him in an effort to ward off the draught. But more than that, there was a buzzing undercurrent of excitement - the sense of impending adventure that took him back to that first summer, all those years ago…

He woke to the chatter of birds and the rumble of traffic outside. The time on his phone read 6:24, and it took him a moment to groggily do the maths - they’d worked late last night, and he’d only managed to get a handful of hours.

 

Despite that, he couldn’t get back to sleep. Rolling off the couch with a groan, he stretched with a satisfying click, and went in search of a cup of coffee.

The morning light cast the kitchen in shades of pale grey as he blearily filled the kettle and set it on the boil. He opted to reuse his mug from last night, watching the dregs swirl away down the drain in a half-asleep daze. It was only when Mabel cleared her throat from behind him that he realised he had company.

 

They sat side-by-side on the sofa, nursing their cups of coffee as Norman plugged an address into his phone.

“It’s about two and a half hours from here to Gravity Falls,” he said, scrolling the route on his phone. “Probably less if the traffic’s not too bad, it depends.”

Mabel had pulled the sleeves of her dressing gown over her hands, and was staring at the surface of her cup. “I’ll need to pack a couple things. Did you bring a change of clothes?”

“I brought a suitcase down with me,” Norman said slowly. “Enough for a week or so.”

“Good.” She took a slow drink, and glanced over at him. “Knowing Dipper, it could take a couple of days to hunt him down.”

 

Breakfast was a rushed affair; Norman rinsed out their bowls as Mabel threw some clothes into a sports bag, and they were on the road by the time the sun had started to peek above the horizon. They stopped for gas at a roadside station on the outskirts of the city, and as Norman filled the car up Mabel was fiddling with her phone. She hung up the call as Norman swung back into the driver’s seat.

“I’ve got the next couple days off my shift,” she said as they pulled off. “I said it was a family emergency.”

Out of the corner of his eye Norman saw her face twist in discomfort at the lie. “It’s half true,” he consoled, and Mabel gave a hollow laugh.

“Yeah.”

 

The freeway wound its way past Mount Hood, turning steadily south as the pines fled past. There had been snow recently, and the forests on either side of the highway were crested with white, stark against the bright winter blue of the sky. Norman spotted an eagle, wheeling in lazy circles on the updraft from the roads, climbing higher and higher until it was a black speck swallowed in the endless blue. 

The tinny car stereo was tuned into a station playing 90s pop, and Norman let it drone into the background as they sped onwards. It had been a while since he’d been in the state, and he eagerly drank in the view. Had it always been so beautiful here?

 

The three lanes became two, and then one, and it wasn’t until the sign for  _ Gravity Falls: 12 miles _ shot past that Norman finally spoke up.

“What’d’you think it means? The message,” he asked, the car wallowing as they crested a pothole. Mabel stifled a yawn, sitting up straight in her seat. Her face was red where it had been propped up on her palm, and she looked like she’d dozed off at some point during the journey.

“I’m not totally sure,” she said, rubbing her eyes absentmindedly. “ _ The place where everything started _ … did he mean the shack?”

“That’s what I was thinking,” Norman nodded, slowing the car as they rounded a sharp bend. “It’d seem like the obvious place to hide… whatever it is we’re looking for.”

 

Mabel hummed her assent, gaze travelling back to the window. “I’m not sure. What does he mean by  _ everything started _ ?”

“I was hoping you’d know the answer to that.” A shape caught Norman’s eye at the side of the road - a spectral deer, staring wide-eyed at the car before scrambling away on bent-backwards legs. “Maybe once we get there, the fresh air will help to clear our heads.”

“Tell me about it,” Mabel groaned, biting back another yawn. “I feel like I barely slept last night.”

 

They broke out of the treeline, and Norman felt something warm swell in his chest as they were greeted with their first glimpse of the falls. The town was spread out before them, cupped in the valley and still shrouded in a thin veil of morning mist. In the distance, the old railway track split the skyline, the cliffs either side looming blue-grey in the faint light. Mabel eagerly craned her neck, watching it spin past as they turned onto a side road down to the shack, and keeping her eyes trained on the sight until it was once more swallowed up by the pines.

 

* * *

 

 

“ _ Soos! _ ”

Norman had barely engaged the handbreak before Mabel launched herself out the passenger door. Soos was speaking to a crowd of tourists in front of the shack, but at Mabel’s exclamation he broke off his speech and turned, his face splitting into a wide grin.

“Dudes!” He caught Mabel’s tackle with a laugh, wrapping his broad arms around her. The fez on his head wobbled dangerously, and Mabel wiggled free to catch it. Norman couldn’t hear what they were chatting about, but as he locked the car and came over Soos gave him a hearty wave.

“Norman! How’s those ghosts holding up?”

“You know,” Norman said with a shrug, “still dead.”

  
  


Soos invited them into the living room of the shack while he finished showing the group of tourists around. Norman took a few moments to take the room in as Mabel sank into the TV chair with a contented sigh. Soos’ influence definitely showed; the old stone walls had been plastered over, painted in an antique white that set off the deep burgundy of the new carpeting. The axolotl tank was still here, he noted with a smile, set above the small chest of drawers. Its inhabitant met his gaze with a belligerent, black-eyed stare.

 

There was a snuffling noise, and Mabel gave a delighted squeal, leaping to her feet as Waddles trotted into the room.

“Waddles!” she cooed, laughing as the pig tackled her ankles, grunting happily. “Look at you, fatty face! C’mere, you.”

She scooped him up, with some difficulty (“Sheesh, what has Soos been  _ feeding _ you?”), and collapsed back down onto the chair with Waddles across her lap. “What do you wanna watch, mister? Ooh, the infomercial channel! Good choice…”

 

Soos poked his head in twenty or so minutes later. Mabel sat up in the chair, plopping Waddles down onto the carpet; Norman slid off his perch on the arm, and the two of them moved to stand expectantly side by side as Soos stowed his fez. When he turned to them, his expression was serious.

“So what’s the sitch?” he asked, nodding towards the table at the far end of the room. Mabel had spread out their papers from last night’s codebreaking over its surface, and as they moved over she scooped up the one with the message on it, holding it up.

“Dipper’s gone off the grid,” she said. “Norm and I tried to contact him holding the old phone he gave me, but instead we got this weird coded message. When we decoded it, this is what it said.”

 

Soos took the page, mouth twisting as he read it over. “Huh. You’d think he could just leave an answerphone message, or something.”

“Any idea what it means?” Norman asked. “We assumed it had to do with something here in Gravity Falls, but we don’t know where.”

Soos tugged his whiskers in thought. “Maybe somewhere here in the Shack? If I was gonna hide a spooky message, it’d probably be here.”

Mabel nodded. “Has Dipper visited recently? We think he only set this up in the last few months - did he swing by at all?”

“Oh, sure! It was, uhh, maybe a month or two ago?” Soos paused to count weeks on his fingers, then shrugged. “Anyway, yeah, he’s been by. The dude seemed pretty frazzled, though. I kinda chalked it up to him being on the tail of another mystery, heheh.”

“How long did he stay for?”

“Eh, not long. He spent the night here, but when I went to open the Shack the next morning, boom, he was gone. Not even so much as a goodbye for his ol’ pal Soos.”

Norman frowned.

“Did he say or do anything that seemed… odd to you? Anything that could give us a clue?”

“He wasn’t, uh, talkative - but again, I just chalked that up to how he is,” Soos replied with a shrug. “Oh, I saw him go down to Ford’s lab, though. Could be there’s something down there?”

“Then that’s where we’ll start,” Mabel said, rising from her chair. “Thanks, Soos.”

“Hey, no prob!” Soos flashed her a thumbs up. “I’ve got a couple more tours of the Shack today, but lemme know if there’s anything else I can help you twos with.”

 

Mabel and Norman made their way to the gift shop, and waited until the coast was clear before entering the code on the vending machine - Mabel gave a soft sigh of relief as it swung open - and making their way down.

“I think I’ve only ever seen the lab once,” Norman admitted, as the elevator descended with a worrying rumble.

“Me too,” Mabel said. “Twice, maybe. I know Dipper used to come down here a lot, but…”

She shivered, hugging her elbows. “It’s claustrophobic. I hate it down here.”

There was a  _ ding _ , and the elevator doors slid open. Norman had to duck as they exited the lift. He gave Mabel a solemn look.

“Hopefully we’ll find what we’re looking for soon.”

“Yeah,” Mabel replied. “Hopefully.”

 

They stepped out into the small pool of light from the bulb above the elevator doors. Mabel took a few hesitant steps forward, fumbling uncertainly along the wall until her fingertips met the light switch. There was a hum as the strip lighting overhead flickered to life, throwing the room into stark illumination. Blocky consoles and cabinets lined the walls, and through the glass on the far wall Norman could see the faint outline of a huge shape in the main chamber.

 

Mabel let out a shaky breath. “Let’s get all the lights on first,” she said, leading the way into the next room. “Then we can start looking around.”

There were no ceiling lights in here. Instead, Norman managed to find a spotlight, nearly falling over its cable in the gloom. There turned out to be four of them, set in each corner, and together they lit up the contraption in the center: a lumpy, egg-shaped machine over twice as tall as Norman was, mostly covered in a dusty black tarp. In the places it was uncovered Norman could see twisted pipework and worn pieces of plating, thick cables running over its surface like veins. Mabel was able to shed no light on the nature of the machine; she explained with a shrug that she’d never seen it without the tarp off. By the layers of dust, Norman assumed it had been untouched for quite some time.

 

The air in the lab was stale and heavy, and there was a lingering scent of smoke and ozone. Despite the dust, it seemed that several systems were still active, soft whirrings and blinking dashboard LEDs somehow reminding Norman of a slumbering beast stirring in its sleep. The lab wasn’t big, but there were a lot of nooks and crannies to inspect; Mabel and Norman uneasily agreed to split up to have a look around.

 

Their initial sweep of the area yielded nothing. At one point, Mabel gave a high-pitched shriek that brought Norman running - but it turned out to just be a dead rat, the metal floor around it a dark stain. Norman found himself starting to jump at shadows, freezing in alarm only to see the ‘figure’ that he’d seen was really just the flickering of the artificial lighting, a stack of paper swaying in a stagnant breeze. He could feel his unease building as they decided to try a more thorough search.

 

As Mabel started to rummage through file cabinets, Norman gazed around the room. The desk in here was fairly bare; Stan and Ford must have taken everything with them on their latest expedition, leaving only old coffee stains and a rectangular break in the layer of dust to show it had once been in use.

...except, wasn’t that weird? Norman knew that they hadn’t been back to the shack in the best part of a year, maybe longer. He paused, running his fingers over the clean patch.

“It’s pretty dusty down here, huh?” he called. From behind him he heard Mabel drop a stack of files with a groan.

“Eugh, tell me about it, man.”

“So… isn’t it weird that there’s this one space here that isn’t? Look,” Norman said, drumming his fingers across the desk.

Mabel’s eyes widened. She hopped a stack of files and came over, running her finger across the clean patch of the desk with a frown.

“...hmm. Norman,” she said, inspecting her spotless fingertip, “I think you might just be on to something.”

“There was something here,” Norman continued, excitement building, “something that Stan and Ford left behind - otherwise, there’d be dust where it had been as well.”

“But it was moved  _ recently _ ,” Mabel continued, “by someone who knew about the lab and came down here looking for it.”

Norman nodded. “We know what Dipper was looking for down here!”

 

The mood sobered as Mabel looked between Norman and the patch on the desk, smile deflating. 

“...except we don’t, because whatever it was, he took it with him.”

“Yeah,” Norman sighed. “At least we know what he came down here for, though.”

Mabel tugged her hands in her sleeves. “Maybe we should have a look around the rest of the Shack, then. This place is giving me the creeps.”

He wasn’t sure if it was the dust, the chill, or the uncomfortable prickling sensation in the back of his neck that he hadn’t been able to shake since they got down here - but Norman was all too keen to agree.

 

They spent the rest of the day turning the Shack upside-down.

(Metaphorically, of course - Soos had put a lot of work into sprucing the place up, and it held too many sentimental memories to wreck  _ outright _ \- but Mabel was a whirlwind of destructive energies when she wanted to be.)

The axolotl in the tank watched as they picked over the living room, upturning chairs and lifting carpets. Mabel ran her hands along both walls of the Shack’s winding corridors, searching for some hidden cubby or compartment. They poked their heads into rooms Norman didn’t even know existed, combed through every closet and cupboard they could find.

When it hit closing time they gave the museum and gift shop a once-over. Mabel rapped the wooden floorboards with her knuckles as Norman checked behind the stuffed jackalope, and they had to get a stepladder to investigate a suspicious area of the ceiling that turned out to just be the stains from the boiler on the floor above.

 

Soos poked his head in to suggest they order pizza, making Norman do a double take at the time (it was that late already?!). They ate in silence in the kitchen, listening to the rattle of hail on the roof outside. Mabel leapt to her feet as soon as she was finished, doing her best to drum up enthusiasm for another sweep of the house, but as the clock ticked steadily towards midnight even she was forced to give up.

 

Nothing. There was nothing here.

 

As they were making their way upstairs to the twins’ old bedroom, Mabel turned back, giving Norman a wan smile.

“Hey,” she said, “I know today was kind of a bust, but you don’t always get it on the first try, right? We’ll sleep on it and have a proper think on the clue he left tomorrow.”

Norman bit his lip. There were so many things he wanted to say - what if there was  _ nothing _ to find? What if this whole thing was a bust? What if there  _ were _ no clues, this was just a plant to distract attention - worse, something had happened to Dipper, or someone had already been through and taken whatever they were looking for, or…

Instead, he just nodded. “Yeah,” he replied. “Thanks.”

He balked at how insincere it sounded, but Mabel’s smile brightened a little nonetheless.

 

They made the beds with spare sheets Mabel dug out of a cupboard, and when the lights went out Norman pulled the covers up over his head, curling up in the small space. The sound of wind and hail outside was muffled, and the covers blocked out all light, leaving Norman with only the sounds of his own breathing, hot and humid in the pocket of air around him.

The day’s events had been gnawing at him, and now the low buzzing in his skull felt like it was going to erupt. He  _ knew _ it was irrational - that Dipper was probably fine, he was worrying over nothing - but he couldn’t help himself.

 

He tucked his arms into his chest, suddenly reminded of how empty the bed felt with only him in it.

  
  


That night, Norman dreamt of storms.

He was floating, looking down (or was it up?) on a great tumultuous vortex of clouds. Lightning sped across its surface, and it made his teeth tingle and his hands ache with a familiarity he couldn’t quite place. The air felt thick, heavy, almost like he could taste it, like sulfur. He was damp, he realised. Had it been raining?

The storm began to boil and rush, and he was tumbling in a wild freefall. A cloud bank rushed towards him, painted unearthly green in the setting sun, and the world became muted around him as he plunged into its depths.

Then there were stars winking into life around him, blazing in the twilight of the storm, their constellation cascading down into the heart of the maelstrom. Past, present and future were three, and a cross made five, and then nine; the thunder crashed like galloping hooves, and Norman swore, through the chaos, he heard someone calling out to him.

 

He awoke in the middle of the night with a start. The dream was already fading, and even as he tried to recall it the thunder dulled, and he was left with only a vague sense of unease. He rolled back over, shaking his head to clear it, and slept soundly through the rest of the night.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (slides into fandom after four years with fic) hey what’s up
> 
> i haven't written prose in literally six years, so please excuse the dust! i'm actually currently searching for a beta reader, so if anyone would be willing to help out i'd be extremely grateful <3
> 
> the first few chapters are mostly norman-centric, but i'm planning to diversify in later chapters. most of the main cast of kids will be showing up in this! for reference, they’re between 19-21 in this fic; that weird age where the world seems to expect you to have your shit together but things still don’t make sense.  
> this isn't a ship-focal fic, but there's probably going to be some relationship overtones - y'know, for drama.
> 
> no warnings in this chapter, but for future chapters there's going to be mild violence, horror and bad language - i'll bump up the rating if there's anything that merits it (currently unlikely but better safe than sorry!)
> 
> thanks for reading!


	2. Page of Pentacles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Norman and Mabel go hunting in the woods.

Morning light was streaming in through the high window when Norman woke. He took in the surroundings blearily, recognising the splintered wooden ceiling of the twin’s room. He was in Dipper’s bed, he realised, and wondered if its other occupant was still asleep. Hopefully he hadn’t overslept - the sunshine wouldn’t last forever, and they had so much planned -

 

He sat up, and noticed that the bed was empty, and the realisation of the last few days came back to him.

He stumbled to the bathroom, rubbing at his eyes angrily to try and clear his vision. He’d forgotten to take his piercing out last night, he observed in the mirror with a grimace, and the skull-shaped stud had left a sore red mark against his neck. He drank several handfuls from the faucet and splashed the rest against his face, grabbing blindly for a towel as the cold water shocked him awake.

 

Norman met his own gaze in the mirror with a frown. The persistent dark circles under his eyes made his gaunt face look even more skeletal than usual, and he was in need of a haircut soon. He made a token effort to comb through the offending bristles with his hands, and shuffled downstairs, hoping that a cup of coffee would help dull the headache building between his temples.

 

Mabel and Soos were waiting for him in the kitchen, a box of colourful cereal on the table between them. There was a third bowl out for him, and Norman poured himself breakfast as Mabel rose to put the kettle on.

“We’ve been thinking,” she said, once Norman had managed to find a spoon, “we’ve looked through pretty much all the hiding places in the Shack, and so far nothing, right?”

“Yeah,” Soos chimed in, “I’ve been rackin’ my brains and I can’t think of anywhere we haven’t looked yet.”

“ _So_ ,” Mabel continued, leaning forward, “what if it’s not in the Shack at all? Maybe whatever we’re looking for is somewhere else in the falls.”

“Gives you a lot of places to look, though,” Soos sighed. Norman chewed his cereal thoughtfully, tuning Soos out as he started listing locations. Instead, his mind was echoing their clue: _go to the place where everything started_ …

 

“The journals,” he said with a start, spoon clattering into his bowl as he jolted upright. “I - Dipper told me that was the first thing that happened on the first summer you were here, right? It’s got to be.”

“I thought so, too,” Mabel said morosely, “but they’re all with Grunkle Ford at the moment, and the clue said _where_ , not _what_.”

“Exactly,” Norman said. “I know Stan had one of them, and you had to rescue one from that Gideon creep, but the first one - the one that started it all… where did you find it?”

As he spoke, he saw the lights turn on in Mabel’s eyes, and her smile grew wider and wider. She leant forward and clapped him on the shoulder.

“Norman,” she said, “you are a _genius_.”

 

They finished breakfast in a rush, and Norman almost forgot to change out of his pajamas before they headed out. Mabel lead the way surefootedly into the forest, the grass crisp with frost as the sun rose between the trees. They were steaming, and in the swirling mist Norman almost couldn’t tell which of the birds atop their boughs were still living.

There had always been a lot of ghosts around the Falls. At first it had frightened him, but now he just accepted it as another feature of the strange town - another thing that was uniquely _it_. As he and Mabel approached, the flock of birds took flight, passing over their heads like a cloud and disappearing, twittering, over the treetops.

 

“It was somewhere around… here!”

Mabel rapped the trunk with a gloved fist, and there was a dull, metallic clank. She bounced her eyebrows at Norman. “Pretty cool, huh?”

“Is the whole _tree_ metal?” he asked incredulously, stepping forward and patting it hesitantly. True to her world, it was ice-cold to the touch. “That seems like a _lot_.”

“Ford’s that kinda guy,” Mabel shrugged. “His bunker’s underneath, but getting in is pre-tty hairy, so hopefully we won’t have to deal with that.”

“Bunker?” Norman repeated, as she skimmed her hands over the tree’s artificial surface, looking to find purchase. “Like, a whole fallout shelter?”

There was a click, and suddenly Norman could see the outline of a door, slightly raised against the bark. Mabel gave him a grin.

“Like I said, he’s that kinda guy.”

 

She prised the panel open with a creak, revealing a dusty console. One of the buttons did nothing, but the other rewarded them with a low rumble. Norman spun as a section of the forest floor behind them slowly slid back. Mabel went to kneel by the small cubby, her eyes gleaming as she reached inside.

“Jackpot,” she said, showing Norman the scrap of paper inside.

  


They retreated back to the warmth of the shack to pore over their next clue.

It was a map (as far as they could tell): a hand-drawn image of several landmarks Norman recognised from around the falls, including a small sketch of the Shack. A dotted path started there and wound its way through what he assumed was a forest, ending in a shape that was uncomfortably reminiscent of a tombstone. There was a sentence scrawled at the bottom:

 

_scans under directory Z/244/268_

 

“Any ideas?” he asked Mabel.

“I think I’ve seen this rock formation before,” she murmured, tapping an image on the map. “If it’s the one I’m thinking of, this is pretty far. We should probably bring some supplies with us.”

“Supplies?” Norman asked, craning his neck to watch Mabel slide out from her chair and start rooting through kitchen cabinets.

“Snacks,” she said, nonchalantly showing him a fistful of cereal bars. “First aid stuff. Compass. Walkie-talkies? Expedition stuff, y’know.”

She set two canteens on the table, clapping her hands together. “Could ya fill these up for me? I’m gonna go and grab some backpacks from upstairs.”

“Sure,” Norman said. “Uh… have expeditions always been this well-prepared?”

 

Mabel froze in the doorway. Her back was turned to him, but he saw her knuckles go white on the doorframe. She took a halting breath, and there was hesitance in her voice when she replied.

“Well, the - the falls can be a dangerous place, y’know? And it’s just the two of us, so… better safe than sorry!”

She gave a hollow laugh that rang in Norman’s ears as her footsteps receded upstairs.

 

* * *

 

 

It was a half-hour’s trek to the first checkpoint on the map. They’d left the shack bundled up against the cold, but as the trail had sloped upwards hats and scarves had been shed, and Norman’s cheeks felt hot and flushed as they crested the hill where the rock formation stood.

“It gets a little trickier from here,” Mabel mused, casting her eyes over the map. “It looks like we need to go kinda west, and follow the river when we reach it. That should take us to the next cairn, where we need to turn north.”

“Have you been to this part of the forest much?” Norman asked. Mabel shook her head.

“This is farther afield than Dipper and I would usually go,” she said, checking over the map once more before folding it up into her pocket. “I don’t know what might be out here, so we should keep our eyes open.”

 

She checked her compass, and they started west, the winter sun high overhead. The forest here was strangely quiet - occasionally a bird would twitter from a high-off treetop, but for the most part their shuffling footsteps and quiet breathing was the only noise.

“I’m kind of excited,” Norman confessed in a low voice. “Kind of nervous, but also excited.”

Ahead of him, Mabel responded with a flat hum, making a show instead of checking the angle on the compass. Norman caught up to her in a few long strides, twisting his gloved fingers together.

“I mean, it’s an adventure,” he continued slowly. “Just like when we were kids. Haven’t you missed this?”

Mabel turned to him, expression hard and lips parted as if she was about to say something - but then she froze, eyes narrowing.

“Hold on,” she muttered, “do you hear that?”

“Hear wh…”

Norman stilled. There was something - a low rumbling, like a distant storm - getting louder - coming from behind him.

“Norman.” Mabel’s eyes were wide, fixed on something over Norman’s left shoulder. “Don’t. Move.”

The rumbling was getting louder. Norman could hear his heart pounding in his ears, his breathing becoming faster.

“Mabel,” he managed through chattering teeth, “what is - what’s -”

Mabel’s posture was coiled, tense, and as her eyes met his Norman could see the fear written across her face.

“Don’t move,” she repeated, “trust me, please, just -”

 

There was a crash from behind - it sounded close. Mabel’s eyes got impossibly wider.

“ _Shit_ ,” she breathed. “Run. Run!”

Norman didn’t need telling twice.

 

They bolted. There was a deafening roar, and Norman couldn’t resist - he looked back over his shoulder.

The thing was indescribable. He caught a glimpse of four - no, six limbs, twice as thick as the pines, tearing up the undergrowth as it charged towards them. It roared again, and Norman saw a huge black mouth yowl wide on its faceless head.

He spun back, almost running into a tree - one of his gloves snagged on the bark as he caught himself against it, and he dragged his hand free in a blind panic. Beside him, Mabel shrieked as a low branch caught her hair, ripping herself free and stumbling away.

“What _is_ that?!” he yelped, heart stopping as for a moment his feet lost purchase on a slick patch of the forest floor. Mabel was by his side in a heartbeat, grabbing his still-gloved hand and tugging him onwards.

“I don’t _know_ ,” she gasped, glancing backwards, “but it’s gaining on us.”

A look of resolve set in on her face. She shoved Norman forward and slowed, turning to face the beast. One hand went to her belt, and Norman saw her grab something the size of a flashlight. There was a hissing noise like a match being lit, and Mabel gave a battle cry. Then she threw the flare, and the forest was lit up in an unearly red light.

“ _Go, go, go!_ ” she yelled, as the chemical smell of the smoke hit Norman’s airways. He gave a silent thanks that they were running upwind of the beast.

 

“What’s the plan?” he managed to gasp out in between strides. Mabel was fumbling with something around her neck, and as she caught it in her mittens Norman noticed it was the compass.

“The map showed a river crossing,” she panted, twisting the compass to and fro, “just west of here - if we can get to it, we can lose it across the river.”

A bellowing roar split the forest behind him, and Norman winced. “H-how far?”

“Hopefully close!”

The thundering footsteps had started up again.

“Is there a Plan B?”

“ _I’m working on it!_ ”

 

They crested a small slope, Norman having to scramble the last few feet on his hands and knees. Then they were looking down through a sudden break in the treeline, and Mabel’s eyes lit up.

“There!” she yelled, flinging her arm out - Norman spotted the river, white with the reflection of the overcast sky. He risked a glance backwards - the monster was rapidly gaining speed. It was going to be close.

They threw themselves down the valley towards it. Norman’s heel slid on a wet patch of ground, and he yelped as suddenly the world was pulled out from under him. The horizon lurched sickeningly - and then he was looking up at the sky through the trees, and there was a moment of freefall before he hit the ground, hard. His momentum carried him forward, and the sky was spinning as he tumbled over and over. There was a stinging pain in his hand as he dragged himself to his feet, and tears were welling in the corners of his eyes, but there was no time to attend to it - their pursuer had already reached the top of the hill behind them.

 

Blearily, he saw Mabel, a few paces ahead of him. She was scanning the forest intently, poised and alert. Suddenly she yanked something from her belt, a familiar object with a glint of metal at the end, and yelled: “ _Duck!_ ”

Norman was all too happy to oblige.

There was the _whip-hiss_ of a cable flying over his head, and Mabel’s eyes gleamed as the grappling hook tangled itself around a trunk. She unclipped the other end of the cable with a practised motion, and finished tugging it around a sturdy-looking log as Norman stumbled to her side.

Their pursuer was nearly upon them, but as Norman took in the cable, strung taut about three feet off the ground and neatly between them and it, the lightbulb sprung on in his head. Mabel gave him a grin - nervous, but exhilarated.

“Let’s hope this works!” she yelled, grabbing his hand and tugging him on.

 

The monster was close enough to almost feel the vibrations its heavy footfalls made. Norman’s head felt like it was filled with a strange static, a buzzing that clouded the edges of his vision - but it was impossible to isolate over everything else, the thunder of its footfalls, his own ragged breathing, the rushing of blood and adrenaline in his ears. It was maybe a hundred yards between them and the river, and less than half that between them and the beast - _much_ less.

His legs felt like jelly, loose and unresponsive, but the urge to _run_ overpowered that. He forced himself to keep up the pace on the home stretch, and in the back of his mind promised himself that once this was over he’d try and do more exercise.

 

There was a creaking noise from behind, and then an almighty _thud_. Mabel whooped in exhilaration - the trap had worked. They reached the bank of the river just as the monster managed to regain its footing, and Norman eyed the rickety bridge across it nervously. There were no railings - it was barely wide enough for one person, and slick with water and ice from the turbulent river below.

“You first,” Mabel chirped, patting him on the shoulder. “Any day now.”

“Why me?” Norman panted, edging his way out nervously onto the sodden wood. There was the rumble of building footfalls behind them again.

“Go!” Mabel urged, and he resisted the impulse to look back. Instead, he focused on putting one foot in front of the other. It was treacherous going, and painfully slow - he could hear Mabel becoming more and more agitated behind him. Suddenly, the bridge swayed and buckled - he yelled, flinging his arms out to try and stabilise.

“Sorry!” Mabel called from behind. “No time! Hope this holds both of us!”

The bridge began to shake with Mabel’s footsteps, and Norman tried to force himself to speed up to match her. He was so close - only a few more paces to go -

His foot slipped, and suddenly his limbs were wheeling through the air, and he was falling -

But Mabel was there, and she grabbed his hand tight and heaved him back on to the bridge with a grunt.

 

They collapsed on the riverbank, chests heaving. Mabel was the first to scramble to her feet, eyes locking with the monster on the opposite bank.

It was pacing back and forth, hissing. Norman took the opportunity to get a good look at it - it was built like a gorilla, except with two extra limbs, and its ‘face’ was shrunken in and featureless save for a wide, black mouth. It was - hard to look at somehow, and Norman had to pause to screw up his eyes and blink away the building headache. It looked like an optical illusion, its outline skipping and flickering, its skin pulsing and boiling and crawling -

 

He had to tear his eyes away. Mabel helped him to his feet, giving a relieved sigh.

“It’s not gonna cross,” she said. “Doesn’t look like it, anyway.”

“How did you know?” Norman asked. “Have you seen one of those before?”

“Never,” Mabel huffed. “It’s… weird. I don’t like it.”

She peered at it, then scrunched up her face. “Anyway, the river thing was a lucky guess, y’know? There’s a lot of things that don’t like rivers - they’re kind of a boundary. Least, that’s what I’ve heard.”

 

Suddenly her eyes widened, and she grabbed Norman’s wrist. “Oh, geez, Norm, your hand!”

Norman’s eyes fell to his palm. It had felt numb when he was running, but as the adrenaline ebbed and his eyes traced over the thin gash leaking blood down his wrist, the sting came rushing back. He winced, instinctively tugging it towards him, but Mabel’s grip held firm.

“Uh-uh, we gotta take care of this. Hold on,” she said, setting down her pack with a grunt, “I’ll get something for you to wash it out with.”

 

Norman was only half paying attention. There was a strange whispering, just on the edge of his hearing, and he was turning his head this way and that, trying to find its source.

“Hey… do you hear that?”

“I hear you not paying attention, doofus,” Mabel snapped. Norman blinked as a small plastic bottle and a wad of cotton balls was thrust into his face. “Here, rinse it out into the river and swab out any bits of leaves or dirt or whatever while I find the bandages.”

He took them dumbly as Mabel turned back to root around in her backpack. She was muttering something, but Norman couldn’t quite hear it - there was a strange ringing in his ears, and the whispering was getting louder.

“I’m serious,” he said, “I - I hear something.”

He spun, trying to find the source, and the horizon span and stuttered. Mabel was saying something, but he couldn’t make out the words - her voice was dull and muffled, like he was underwater.

 

 _There_. He stilled, his vision taking a second to catch up, and gazed towards a spot in the distance. Whatever they were looking for was there, he was certain of it.

He was moving forward in long strides, his legs taking on a mind of their own. The trees were gliding past, bending and folding away, showing him the path. He could hear the voices clearly, now, a sweet, beguiling song - he couldn’t make out the words, but it was calling him on, he was sure of it - he could hear Mabel to him as well, but her voice sounded so far away, so distant. They were so _close_! Couldn’t she tell?

 

The whistling trees parted like curtains, and he was in a clearing, bordered by a perfect circle. It was the middle of the day, but Norman could see stars overhead - this was the convergence point. This was where they needed to be.

 

He was in the center, and before him, a stone monument - cold, grey, curved like a doorway

it was thrumming - he could feel it through his feet, in his ribs

_norman_

his veins were sparking like lightning, rushing through him, the cut on his palm dripping, itching

_complete the circuit_

_Norman!_

there was a marking on the stone, and his palm fit against it like it was made for him

the blood ran down, into the grooves, he was the wellspring that fed the rivers-

 

“ _Norman_!”

 

Norman blinked.

“Mabel?”

 

Mabel’s face was only inches from his own. Her expression wilted in relief, and suddenly the world came back into focus around him.

They were in a clearing. The sky above was a white circle, framed by bald, needle-like pines. His legs felt damp - he realised he was kneeling in front of the monument, palm still pressed against it. The stone was slick under his hand.

Mabel was crouched next to him, her hand steady and warm on his shoulder.

“Norman,” she said, quietly, urgently, “what’s going on?”

“I -” Norman’s throat felt dry, tongue thick in his mouth. He swallowed and tried to focus. “I think - something wants me here. There’s a - a pull.”

Mabel regarded him in silence for a few moments. Then her eyes traveled upwards, cresting the stone monument behind Norman, and widened in recognition.

“Norman,” she said, “that’s -”

 

There was a rumble, like heavy stone slabs moving against each other. The ground under Norman buckled and sagged, and he threw himself forward with a cry as it fell away beneath him. Clods of damp earth came away under his clawing hands, and he found himself scrambling up the top of a stone staircase. The other end led into the black chasm that had opened up behind him, disappearing into the darkness.

 

Mabel rose to her feet, the motion dislodging another handful of dirt; Norman listened to it rattle down the stairs and into the darkness.

“This is the headstone,” she murmured. “The one from the map. Norman, you found what we were looking for.”

“I - I guess.”

  


They stood side-by-side, gazing into the cavern. There was a faint updraft of warm air against Norman’s face, carrying with it the smell of soil and forest rot. It was hard to place, but there was something comforting about it, a gentle beckoning like the caress of sleep after a long day.

“It’s your call, Norm.”

Norman realised he’d been leaning forward, as if something had been imperceptibly tugging him into darkness. He straightened his spine, taking in Mabel’s face, determined and expectant.

“You’ve always had a good instinct for… this kinda stuff,” she continued, gesturing down into the cavern. “I trust your lead on this one.”

 

Norman turned his hand over. The blood had started to dry where it had pooled along the bottom of his palm, but the wound itself was pink and clean. It had stopped bleeding.

“I don’t think it’s dangerous,” he said slowly, scuffing a toe on the first step experimentally. “There was… something _wanted_ me to come here, but I don’t think it was malicious.”

“That’s good enough for me,” Mabel said. “Let’s go.”

 

She flicked on a torch, the beam thick and milky in the dusty air, and the two followed its light down the stone stairs. It was warmer down here than Norman expected, and Mabel pulled her scarf over her mouth as the dust thickened and the air grew dry and stale. By the time they reached the bottom, the entrance was barely visible, a pale rectangle of light far behind and above them.

They were in a small chamber. Its walls were carved smoothly from the dirt, undulating in a way that reminded Norman of the yawning throat of a huge animal. It was barely tall enough to stand in, and he tried to push down the rising sense of claustrophobia.

Mabel played the beam of her flashlight over the room, picking out a large stone structure Norman heard a sharp intake of breath.

“Whoa, check this out,” she whispered, running her hands over the object. It was about the size of a sofa, angular in shape, but Norman didn’t get a good look - his attention was elsewhere.

 

There was a ghost in the corner of the chamber. He hadn’t noticed them initially, but now their soft spectral glow made them impossible to ignore. Their features were faded, like an old photograph, and as he approached they stood awkwardly, as if in undeath they’d almost forgotten how.

“Hello,” he ventured. “My name’s Norman. What’s yours?”

The ghost’s form shuddered, and for a moment their features pulled together, and Norman could see their face clearly. They were male, with a curled moustache and a weary, guarded expression.

“Guevere,” he said, in a far-off voice. “James Guevere. Then again, if you’re here, you probably already knew that.”

“What do you mean?” Norman asked. He could hear Mabel’s footsteps as she came to hover over him, and gently held up a hand to keep her at bay. Guevere regarded him suspiciously.

“You’re looking for _it_ , aren’t you?” he asked. “You’re not the first, boy, oh no. First to make it _down_ here in a while, though, I suppose. Those of your bloodline are few and far between these days.”

 

He began to pace the room, legs stuttering and overlapping like stuck film slides. As Norman’s eyes followed, it suddenly hit him just what the stone structure in the center of the room was - a sepulchre, its lid intricately carved from grey stone. Guevere skimmed his fingers across it fondly.

“This is where you were buried,” he said softly. “I’m… sorry for intruding.”

“Don’t be,” Guevere huffed. “As I said, you’re hardly the first to come here in search of the Engine.”

Norman caught Mabel’s eye across the room. She’d been studying the carvings on the sepulchre, and listening in to what she could of the conversation. Her gaze bounced from it, back up to Norman, and she raised her eyebrows meaningfully. Norman nodded.

“We’re… not here for that,” he said warily, “but we think we’re looking for someone who _is_.”

 

Guevere made a questioning sound.

“Well, if that’s so, you just need to follow the trail,” he rumbled. “You’re bound to catch up to them at some point. Doubt they’ll make it far without this, though.”

He patted the lid, and Norman moved over to inspect it, Mabel helpfully adjusting the beam of the flashlight. “What _is_ it?”

Guevere let out a barking guffaw. “What, I’m expected to just _tell_ you? Use your noggin, lad!”

 

Norman leant forward to take a closer look. Features he’d initially taken for just decorations now jumped out at him - there were markings on the sepulchre, letters and runes arranged in concentric circles. Coloured stones marked out intervals on the circle, and in the middle was a figure, palms out and head back, as if offering itself up.

“It looks like… a key. Like a decoder of some kind,” Mabel mused, and Norman heard the rustling of fabric. “I’m gonna take some pictures.”

“The girl, at least, has some sense in her!” Guevere chuckled, as Norman dutifully took up the flashlight.

 

Mabel circled the sepulchre twice, photographing it from every angle she could find. She ran her hands along its blank stone sides, and hesitantly tested the lid; it wouldn’t budge, and Norman quietly reasoned that was probably for the best. Eventually she looked up, showing Norman the screen and swiping through the photos.

“There’s no moving parts… so everything we need should be in the carvings.” She pocketed the phone and laced her fingers together, shuffling from one foot to the other. “If… if there’s nothing else, then maybe we should head back to the Shack to try and figure this out.”

 

Norman handed her back the torch as she turned to go, and caught sight of Guevere out of the corner of his eye. The ghost had drawn himself up haughtily, staring straight ahead. His face was stoic, but Norman could almost sense his melancholy, a tangible _heaviness_ in his aura, in the glint of his eyes.

 

Mabel was a few steps ahead when Norman found himself hesitating. He looked back at the form of Guevere, already starting to fade and disperse again.

“Can we do anything for you?” he asked. “It… must be lonely down here.”

Guevere’s face wavered. He sighed, and looked down at his hands, trailing like smoke in the air as he turned them over. When he spoke, his voice was gravely, fainter than before.

“It’s been so long,” he sighed. “Before I died, I swore my spirit would stay, and guard the answers here until I was no longer needed. But it’s… it’s been so long.”

He looked up, and Norman was struck by how human his sorrowful face suddenly looked.

“I think I’m ready,” he said. “If you really want to help, then please… remove the central stone from my coffin. Allow me to rejoin my body, and finally pass on.”

 

Norman nodded, and moved to run his fingers around the carving of the figure in the center of the rings. It was raised ever so slightly, and with some effort he gripped it, prising it gently loose. There was a small grate under it, and through its bars Norman knew he was looking into the deep darkness where Guevere’s body lay.

The ghost drifted over, seeping like mist through the gaps. His face gave Norman one last, forlorn smile, before fading entirely, and Norman was alone in the chamber.

 

Then the floor began to shake.

Loose earth started to dribble from the ceiling, and from along the passage Norman heard Mabel cry out.

“It’s caving in!” she yelled. “We gotta _move_!”

Norman flung himself up the stairs as the room crumbled around him. Mabel’s flashlight was bouncing wildly across the walls as they ran for it, breaking out into open air again just as the tunnel choked shut behind them in a shower of dust and earth.

Norman doubled over, trying to catch his breath, and glaring at the stone in his hand.

“He _could’ve mentioned that_ ,” he grumbled.

 

* * *

 

 

Finding their way back to the Shack was uneventful. They walked until they found the river, warily making their way over the crossing - but the monster from earlier was nowhere in sight. From there, it was another hour, smooth going once they located the cairn - from there, Mabel knew the woods like the back of her hand. It wasn’t long before the welcome view of the Shack’s rickety rooftop came into view.

Norman’s palm had long since stopped bleeding, but Mabel insisted on giving it a proper look before they carried on with anything else. It wasn’t deep enough to require stitches, thankfully; Mabel wrapped it tightly in gauze and instructed Norman in a stern voice to “leave it alone for a little while”.

 

They made camp in the kitchen, Norman digging out some granola bars from their pack while Mabel fetched her laptop. As she returned and started to type, a woman poked her head through the door; it took Norman a few moments to recognise her, but Mabel was instantly on her feet.

“Melody!” she exclaimed, throwing her arms around the woman, who returned the embrace warmly. She was Soos’ girlfriend, Norman recalled - he’d seen her a couple times around the Shack. He didn’t have much of a read on her other than “nice”, but that was good enough.

 

As she and Mabel made small talk, Norman’s gaze fell to the centerstone from Gruvere’s sepulchre. He’d come out of the tomb without realising it was still in his hand, and somehow it had seemed unfitting to leave it there. It looked strangely mundane now, lying on their kitchen table in the artificial light of the overhead lamp.

He pulled it closer, tracing the figure painted on its surface. It reminded him of the old woodcut illustrations he’d seen in medical textbooks before - the lines were rough and organic, the figure rendered in a pseudo-realism that was almost grotesque. There was text on it, he noticed, a faint scrawl running around the outside of the circular stone. It wasn’t a language he could read - Latin, if he had to guess, or something like it.

 

His eyes lingered over the face of the figure. Their features were tightly drawn, mouth pursed and eyes screwed shut. They looked apprehensive, almost afraid. There was something upsettingly _human_ about the expression, and Norman felt an odd surge of pity swell in his chest.

 

“...but there’s, like, _nothing_ on this guy.”

Mabel’s voice brought him back to the present. She was leaning back in her chair, giving the laptop a disparaging pout. “The Wiki page on him is about two paragraphs, and all the other hits are these weird pre-2000s occultism sites. Other than when he was born, and that he was buried here in Gravity Falls -”

“Which you already _knew_ ,” Melody added, and Mabel nodded.

“...there’s almost no info,” she finished with a sigh. “A couple of hits on museum archives, but I don’t know what we’re supposed to get from _that_.”

 

Norman scraped his chair back and went to stand over Mabel, checking the screen. She wasn’t lying - whoever this person had been in life, nobody on the internet seemed to know about it.

“Maybe…” Norman hummed. “He was buried here in Gravity Falls, so maybe he did some work here? The local library might have a lead.”

“That’s a good call.” Mabel checked her watch, chewing her lip. “It’s pretty late, but if we head out now we can make it to the library with about twenty minutes?”

 

There was a rap on the doorframe, and Norman looked up to see Soos leaning in, fez in hand and face furrowed.

“What did you say this dude’s name was, again?”

Mabel blinked. “James Guevere,” she said slowly. “Why?”

“Because,” Soos said, “I think I might be able to save you the trouble.”

 

He returned a few minutes later with a stack of papers, dumping them onto the kitchen table with a satisfied grin.

“I thought the name sounded familiar,” he said, tugging the string binding them loose. “Funny thing - Misters Pines were doing some digging on the same guy, about a year ago. Heh, good thing I kept all their clippings.”

Mabel’s eyes widened as she sifted through the stack. There were newspapers, old and yellow, with frenzied annotations in a red pen; printouts, clippings, and photographs; even a few worn pages that looked like they’d been torn straight out of a book. The latter had two paragraphs circled, and Norman tugged it towards himself across the table, skimming the text:

 

 

> ...uncertain; nevertheless, were such an artifact to exist, it seemed likely that Guevere would go to great lengths to hide it from those he was convinced were unworthy.
> 
> He considered himself a man of science and rationale, and in particular drew heavily from the works of Leonardo. As a result, shortly after his death, rumours began to abound that Guevere had hidden his masterpiece - his ‘Engine’ - behind a cryptic scavenger hunt, a quest involving clues hidden within his life’s works. Indeed, in the months following, his grave - an unmarked monument by a small Oregon town called _Gravity Falls_ \- saw an influx of visitors from fans and fortune-seekers, hoping to find a lead.
> 
> But despite the furore, nothing was ever uncovered, and eventually the hubbub died down. The secret of Guevere’s ‘Doomsday Engine’, if it ever existed at all, lies buried with the man himself.

 

“‘Doomsday Engine’?” Norman repeated. Mabel had spread several clippings out in front of her, and she tapped one with a start.

“Here!” she said. “‘Guevere is rumoured to have created several such artifacts over the course of his life, and the Doomsday Engine would be his crowning achievement, were it anything other than rumour and wild speculation. The ultimate fusion of magick and sciences, the Doomsday Engine was designed to allow its user mastery over the boundaries of life and death.’ Oof.”

She scooped up the paper, holding it closer. “‘If Guevere’s other purported creations - the prophetic orrery, the ever-north lodestone - were considered fanciful exaggeration, the Engine is surely pure fantasy’... blah, blah, blah… ‘however, shortly before his death, Guevere destroyed all records of his work from his lab. As such, the existence - or otherwise - of the Engine, and his other artifacts, remains a mystery.’”

 

Norman drew a long breath.

“Guevere mentioned his ‘Engine’,” he said, meeting Mabel’s gaze. “It exists. I’m certain of it.”

Mabel nodded. “If it does… Norman, _look_ at all this stuff. It’s got to be what Stan and Ford are looking for.”

 

Norman’s mind was racing. He got to his feet, starting to pace round the kitchen.

“Three months ago, Dipper cuts off communication, out of nowhere. Two months ago, he comes here, and leaves behind a message leading to the map to Guevere’s grave.” He spun on his heel, running fingers through his hair, suddenly filled with restless energy. “He - something must have happened, and Dipper needed to find them, and he knew what they were after - he knew the fastest way to find them was to go looking for the same thing _they_ were.”

“So if we want to find _him…_ ”

Norman nodded. “We need to go after the Engine.”

 

Mabel gripped the table tightly, staring off into the middle distance. She took a breath to steady herself, then rose to her feet, turning to face Norman. For a second, his vision spun - he saw her standing steady, immobile, before a vast oncoming storm.

“Ok,” she said. “Where do we start?”

 

“The articles mentioned there might be clues in some of the things Guevere built,” Norman mused. “I think that’s what some of these other clippings were referring to.”

He spread the pictures out, poring over them. Several were simply illustrations, but there were a few faded photographs - and one much more recent one, circled twice in red pen, that caught his eye.

“‘The Zodiac Orrery’,” Mabel read from the caption. “They mentioned something about this in the other book, right?”

“Maybe there’ll be a lead there, then,” Norman said. “Do we know where it is?”

 

Mabel tugged it towards herself. “The clipping’s from a museum. If we’re lucky, it’s on display there. Gimme a second…”

Her fingers clattered over her keyboard, and after a moment she nodded.

“This article’s recent, and the website confirms it,” she said, spinning the screen to face Norman. “The Orrery is being displayed at the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture.”

“Spokane, huh…?” Norman whistled through his teeth. “It’s not exactly next door.”

“No,” Mabel sighed, “but it’s the best lead we’ve got.”

She started counting a list of preparations on her fingers. “We’ve brought a week’s worth of stuff with us each - we don’t know how long this’ll take, but that’ll do for now. I’m going to ask Soos if he can spare us some money for gas - I don’t know about you, but my savings won’t cover more than a month or two, less depending on how much mileage we’ll rack up. When will you be ready to set off tomorrow?”

Norman rubbed his eyes. “Early as possible. It’s gonna take us at least six hours to get up there, probably more.”

He stifled a yawn. “I’unno about you, but I’m about ready to hit the sack. It’s been a long day.”

Mabel stretched her arms above her head, squeaking as her back clicked. “I am _with you_ on that, my guy.”

  


Norman collapsed into bed as soon as they got upstairs. The ache from the day’s hike was starting to set in, and his limbs felt loose and wobbly. It had barely gone 8, but he was already ready to call it a day. Mabel had her legs crossed on her own bed, flipping through a magazine.

Norman let his eyes drift shut, and had begun to doze off when he felt his phone buzz.

 

Grumbling, he rolled over, digging it out of his pocket and squinting as its screen lit up. Blinking blearily at the text across it, his ire quickly melted once he read who the message was from.

 

your pal neil :), 8:21PM  
Howdy!! You havent been online much the past few days  
So here’s your obligitory “are you still alive?” check in.

Me, 8:23PM  
neillllll  
yep, still among the living

your pal neil :)  
Whew! LOL  
How’s it hangin, brotato salad?

Norman wrote out a few lines, before backspacing and instead typing:

Me, 8:25PM  
sall good  
still got a couple wks before my next project starts so im visiting mabel atm

your pal neil :)  
:D  
Say hi to her for me!!

“Neil says hi,” he called across the room. Mabel flashed him an enthusiastic thumbs-up.

“Tell him hi back!”

Me, 8:26PM  
she says hi

your pal neil :)  
Woo!  
Alright, that was all really  
I’ll lechu get back to whatever crazy stuff you are up to then :P

Me  
=;)

your pal neil :)  
:O

Norman checked his hand before bed, toothbrush hanging loosely from his mouth as he unpicked the gauze. The cut was pink and raw, but already showing signs of healing nicely; Mabel strung a fresh dressing over it before wriggling into bed and flicking out the lights.

The sky outside was pitch dark. Thick layers of cloud smothered any moonlight, and the only sounds in the room were his and Mabel’s breathing, and the featherlight tap of falling snow against the window.

Norman found himself on his back, staring up at the ceiling. He should have been exhausted - his body already felt leaden, ready to succumb to the sweet nothingness of sleep, but there was something keeping him awake.

He rolled over and reached towards the bedside cabinet, fumbling blindly through the darkness until he found the edge of his phone. The light from its screen was almost blinding, and he fumbled with it, hesitating, before thumbing through his contacts list for the person he was looking for.

His most recent message to Dipper was less than a week ago. He scrolled up through a few of them, but the one-sidedness of the conversations was disheartening. Flicking back to the bottom, his thumbs stilled over the screen.

What was the point?

 _Was_ there a point?

Maybe he was just being selfish.

Still, if there was even a chance that he might get a response…

That last spark of hope settled like a snowflake inside Norman’s chest, warm and bright. Resolve renewed, he began to type.

Me, 9:47PM  
hey  
i know your doing this whole. cryptic not responding to anyone thing  
but uh  
i wanted you to know we got your message

Me, 9:49PM  
we visited gueveres grave earlier today  
and tomorrow were setting off to visit the museum where the orrery is

Me, 9:51PM  
i dont even know why im bothering with this  
i dont think youre gonna read it

Me, 9:54PM  
can i tell you something kinda private?  
im pissed at you for vanishing  
like. of COURSE i am  
who even does that?

Me, 9:55PM  
but  
at the same time  
i cant deny this is..kind of exciting  
i dont know if mabel feels the same but ive missed…  
whatever THIS is, ykno?  
the adventure. the mystery

Me, 9:57PM  
i guess im just sad you didnt invite me along

 

He wasn’t  _expecting_ a reply, he told himself. Dipper probably  _wouldn’t_ read these.

But…

In the end, he lay awake for nearly an hour, face lit up in the soft glow of his phone screen, before sleep finally overtook him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic was originally posted to tumblr, but god Ao3's formatting is WORLDS better. hopefully the messaging segments are readable, haha.  
> i've got one more chapter nearly ready to go which should be up this weekend! (honestly i think this one's kind of dross, but it sets stuff up so we can get into the ACTION.) past that, i'm aiming for one or two chapters a month. busy, busy!


	3. Eight of Swords

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coraline receives a message from someone unexpected.

The monster was between Coraline and the door.

Her first impressions were of a dog, except impossibly long and impossibly black. Its eyes were gleaming pinpricks, set _wrong_ on the face, too high, too human, and it was grinning at her.

It slunk into the room, slowly circling her. Coraline’s pulse was thundering in her ears, her breathing harsh and ragged and loud - its footfalls didn’t make a sound, but she could hear it growling, a low rumble like distant static. She took an unsteady step. It stilled, tensing. Her fingers twitched for the knife on her belt -

 

Then it lunged.

She screamed, fear and adrenaline making her voice animalistic and raw. But she was faster. Its horrible blunt teeth clacked on the space where she’d been, but she was already scrambling from her roll to her feet, stumbling through the doorframe as she heard it snarl behind her.

She threw herself down the stairs, two, three at a time, swinging round the banister in a blind panic. Behind her was the galloping of feet, and then a whoosh and a _thud_ \- the stairs turned back on themselves again, and she saw it had leapt the set of stairs in one and was looking right at her.

 

It caught her on the next flight, hooked talons snagging the back of her jacket even as she shoved open the door. She yelled again, wrenched herself free, and slammed the door shut on a thin, ink-black limb to a satisfying yowl of pain.

They wrestled between the door for what felt like an age. It was so close Coraline could smell it, a stench like wet dog and spoiled meat, see the filthy yellow of its teeth and the wild gleam in its eyes. Ramming her shoulder against the door, she grabbed her knife, striking down between two bulbous fingers and yanking back towards herself. The misshapen hand split with a wet tearing sound, and the monster recoiled, shrieking in agony.

 

Coraline took her chance, launching herself away from the door and sprinting down the corridor. She vaulted an overturned desk, and chanced a look backwards. It was limping towards her, slowly at first, but gathering speed, leaving a slick trail of blood as it surged forward and ate up the distance between them. She redoubled her speed, the world contracting until it was just her, the monster behind, and the fire escape in front of her.

She threw herself into the doors and they clattered open, the sudden cool of the night air hitting her face and making her gasp. The grill beneath her feet was slick with rainwater, and her feet almost went out from under her as she skidded down the remaining flight of stairs to street level. Her feet hit the pavement, and she paused, grip tightening on the icy rail, and looked back at the fire escape door.

 

The monster hadn’t followed her. It was stood in the entrance to the abandoned apartment block, chest heaving and eyes livid as it stared her down. A stray droplet of rainwater landed in front of it and it hissed, cringing backwards, before giving Coraline one last seething look and slinking back into the building. Coraline held her breath for a second, then doubled over, the rush of adrenaline dissolving in shaky laughter.

“ _Please_ tell me we got that,” she said, turning to Wybie. Her partner in crime was cowering behind his tripod, bulging eyes still glued to the door at the top of the fire escape. At her statement he turned sharply, shaking his head.

“That’s what you’re worried about?!” he exclaimed, bringing his hands up. “Sheesh, Jonesey, that was _way_ too close for comfort.”

“Yeah, but it was also pretty fuckin’ cool,” Coraline gushed. She fiddled with the strap for a second, then tugged her GoPro from around her head, flashing the lens a thumbs up as Wybie fished a tablet from his pocket and gave it a few taps.

“Footage is all here,” he confirmed, and Coraline whooped in triumph. She clapped him on the shoulder, and even as he shrugged off her hand there was a reluctant grin creeping over his face.

“Coraline Jones, you are one crazy mofo, you know that?”

“It’s what I do, Wybie,” she replied with a nonchalant shrug. “It’s what I do.”

 

The pair were treating themselves to some celebratory fast food when Coraline’s phone buzzed.

Transferring her burger to one hand, she dug it out of her pocket with the other and swiped the screen. Across the table, Wybie was giving her a curious look.

There was one new message, and Coraline’s eyebrows shot up when she read who it was from:

 

Lili, 11:43PM  
hey. You’re filming tonight, right?  
This is gunna sound crazy, but listen. you can’t publish the footage.

 

Wybie must have read something in her expression, because when she looked up he was leaning across the table, craning his neck to try and see the screen.

“What?” he asked in hushed tones. “Who’s it from?”

Coraline shooed him away with her burger as she tapped out a response with her thumb:

 

Me, 11:44PM:  
???

 

“It’s Lili,” she muttered. Wybie’s eyes grew wider.

“ _That_ Lili?”

“Mm.” Coraline frowned. “I didn’t even know she had this number.”

 

Lili, 11:45PM  
yeah, yeah, I know. Hear me out.  
I know you think you’re underground, but there’s a lot of organisations who keep an eye on the ‘net for this kind of paranormal stuff. If you post it, you could get some serious heat from people you don’t want anything to do with.

 

“What’s it about?” asked Wybie, now nearly on his feet to try and get a look at the screen. Coraline elbowed him back, giving him a meaningful glare.

“She’s being really weird about something. Hold on a sec, will ya?”

 

Me, 11:46PM  
sure. that’s never stopped us before  
what’s all this abt?

Lili  
There’s some stuff happening right now. Trust me, you need to keep a low profile for a bit.

Me  
stuff?

Lili  
Stuff.  
Stuff I can’t tell you about, but you need to be aware of.  
Consider it a tip-off from someone who doesn’t want to see you end up in a body bag.

Me  
that’s a nice way to say ‘friend’

Lili  
Ha.

 

“She wants us to hold off putting tonight’s footage up,” Coraline said slowly, laying the phone down so she could grip her temples. “Apparently there’s something going on, and we shouldn’t draw attention to ourselves.”

“...okay,” Wybie said slowly, “sure, that’s not incredibly cryptic and worrying.”

“I don’t know what to tell you!” Coraline hissed. “What, we haven’t seen her in three years and then one night she comes out of nowhere -”

She was cut off as her phone rumbled the arrival of a new message. Sliding the phone forward so Wybie could read it as well, they skimmed it in silence:

 

Lili, 11:49PM  
This should all have blown over in a month or so. In the meantime, I just want to know that you aren’t running around with a target on your back out there.  
I know we were never the best of friends, but please. trust me on this one.

 

Coraline met Wybie’s gaze. His lips were pulled into a lopsided frown, but after a moment he shrugged it off, looking back down to the phone. His expression was neutral as he said, “Well, it’s your choice.”

 

Coraline sighed, and pulled the phone towards her.

 

Me, 11:50PM  
alright, sure. I trust you.

 

The ride back to their apartment was short, and did nothing to clear Coraline’s head. She was wearing a scowl underneath her helmet as she tugged it off, waiting for Wybie to toe the kickstand on his bike before the two took the elevator up to their floor.

 

Wybie made a beeline for his room as soon as they were over the threshold, mumbling a bleary goodnight, but Coraline felt wide awake. Her mind was buzzing as she slumped down in front of the TV, its screen throwing an oasis of blue light in the dark room. Turning the volume down low and idly flicking through the channels, she found a news broadcast, and let it drone into the background. After a moment of deliberation, she grabbed her phone, scrolling through her contacts list until she found the person she was looking for.

 

Me, 12:25PM  
hey. you still up?

Norm, 12:29PM  
yh. whats up

Her fingers hovered over the keys for a few moments, before she decided to just come out and ask.

Me, 12:30PM  
random question, you heard from Lili at all recently?

Norm  
as in z? nah, sorry  
havent heard from either of those two for… a while

Norm, 12:31PM  
why u ask?

For a moment, Coraline considered just playing the whole thing off - telling him it had been nothing. She dismissed the uncharacteristic paranoia, and instead wrote:

Me, 12:32PM  
she just messaged me out of the blue this evening. it was really weird  
she wanted us to hold off on posting our next video for some cryptic reason

Norm  
what!! thats no fair =:(  
i wanted to see whether you found the thing from last weeks vid, it looked nasty

Me  
aww, you still keep up with our channel?

Norm  
im your #1 fan  
coraline “hardcore” jones stan til i die

Norm, 12:33PM  
plus, every wk you upload is another wk you HAVENt been mauled to death by things you found in some nasty back alley

Me  
a: i’m way too good at my job to die  
b: if i Did die you bet your ass i’m gonna come and haunt you  
so there’s really nothing to worry about

Norm, 12:34PM  
haha  
what are family for, right?

 

Coraline leaned back against the armrest of the couch, the TV a muffled lullaby as her eyelids slowly grew heavy. She debated just giving up and falling asleep where she was, but a night on the sofa would leave her with a crick in her neck the following morning. Rising with a groan, she headed for her room, flicking off the TV and plunging their lounge into darkness.

 

* * *

 

 

Norman woke to shuffling noises from the bathroom. Mabel was up before him again, he noted blearily, untangling himself from the cheap motel covers and peeking through the blinds. It was a dim, overcast day outside, the sun barely on its way up; the numbers on the bedside alarm read 7:49.

He squeezed himself into the corner of the ensuite, brushing his teeth while Mabel finished shaving. They’d hit some pretty bad traffic on the way up, and by the time they’d arrived in town and found their way to the museum it had been closed. He’d half-heartedly suggested spending the night in his van, but Mabel had shot down the idea almost immediately, and instead they’d rumbled around town until they found this place. It wasn’t much, he reflected as he spat into the sink, but it had running water and was cheap, so he couldn’t really complain.

 

He went to dig out a pair of jeans from his luggage when his phone buzzed, the screen showing two new messages. He scooped it up, and when he read the screen he felt his heart miss a beat.

They were from Dipper.

 

Norman glanced behind him - from the sound of running water, Mabel was still finishing up in the bathroom. His palms were suddenly slick and sweaty, fingers trembling as he fumbled to open the screen. There it was, below his messages from two nights ago:

 

Dipper, 7:51AM  
If you’re serious about this  
March 12th, 1862. You’ll know it when you see it.

 

Norman felt a wave of emotions hit him. Relief was among them - Dipper was _alive_ , thank god, he was _ok_ \- but it was followed by an ugly mix of anger, spite, and worry.

Why was he still being so _cryptic_ ? Couldn’t he just tell Norman where he was, and forget this whole ridiculous scavenger hunt? He must have read Norman’s earlier messages as well - why didn’t _they_ deserve a reply? Why now? Why -

 

Mabel came out of the bathroom, humming to herself, and Norman suddenly panicked. He fumbled with his phone, hiding it from view as she sat on her bed.

“You ok, Norm?”

Mabel had a towel loosely around her shoulders. Something in his posture must have given him away, because she was giving him a weird look. He tried to relax his shoulders, and forced a smile on his face.

“I - I’m good,” he managed. “Just, uh - a bit stiff. Didn’t sleep great last night.”

 

Mabel held his gaze for an uncomfortably long moment, then returned his smile warmly.

“Yeah, I hear ya. Pretty sure I could feel _every spring_ in these things,” she quipped, smacking the mattress for emphasis. Norman laughed, instantly regretting hiding the messages from her. Dipper was her _brother_ , she was probably worried about him just as much as he was.

He pushed the selfish thoughts down and rose to get dressed.

 

The museum was within walking distance from their motel, and Norman welcomed the chance to clear his head. The morning was crisp and fresh, and their route wound along the river, a wide stretch of water that plunged over a set of falls in a deluge of white spray. Snow clung in places on the grass and walkways, and Mabel laughed as a flock of geese flew overhead, bugling a war cry.

 

The Northwest Museum of Art and Culture was a tall, long building, glass-fronted with a sleek, sloping roof. Mabel pointed excitedly to a stand outside advertising the current Titanic exhibit - “I’m just saying, if we’re here _a-ny-waaaay…_ ”

The exhibit in question took up the ground floor, and Mabel cast it a longing look as they ascended the stairs. The museum thankfully didn’t have much ground to cover, and on the second floor Norman stopped on the stairs, something catching his eye at the end of the long room.

 

The orrery, he realised as he approached, was bigger than he’d been expected. It was at about table-height, its circular disc large enough that he could easily have lain across its width, had it not been for the planets. There were - he paused to make a quick count - eight of them, small orbs of polished stone and gold inlay, held aloft on spindly arms. They spun in great, sweeping tracks around a large glass object in the center, which Norman took to be the sun. Through the gaps in the ornately-carved surface he caught a glimpse of intricate clockwork, stacks of gears and levers ruling over the rotation of the makeshift cosmos above.

 

Access was barred by an encircling red rope, and there was a ‘Please Don’t Touch’ sign hung underneath the exhibit information, which Mabel read aloud:

“‘Built by James Gueverre in 1852, shortly after the discovery of Neptune, this orrery is a clockwork device designed to model the movement of the solar system. It is one of the most splendid examples from the time, with gold, gemstones and mother-of-pearl inlays. Its construction was commissioned by Antonia Strauss, a rich baroness, and was recently donated to the museum collection by her descendants.

“‘Antonia had a great interest in astrology, and the construction of the orrery reflects this: notice the outer ring is marked to indicate the constellations of the zodiac. Despite being made over one hundred and fifty years ago, the orrery is still in fine working condition. Visitors may input a date and crank the handle to see the planets move to mimic the configuration they would have been at the time.’ Oh, hey!”

 

There was a small box jutting out from the side of the orrery, and Mabel patted it - Norman saw that there were a series of dials on it, indicating a date, and an old-fashioned crank handle on its side.

“That’s so cool,” Mabel gushed, running her hands over it. “I wanna try my birthday!”

“We’re supposed to be looking for clues, remember?” Norman said as she eagerly turned the dials. She stuck her tongue out at him.

“This is as good a starting point as any!” she said defensively. “C’mon, the books said this thing could predict the future - I wanna know what my horoscope is!”

With a grunt of effort she turned the crank, and there was a ticking sound as the orrery ground to life. Mabel gasped as the planets spun, the Earth and Mars whirling around the Sun at dizzying speeds while Jupiter and Saturn twirled in a leisurely, elegant dance. For such an old machine, the clockwork still ran incredibly smoothly, and as the planets slowed and finally settled at the correct date, Norman had to admit he was impressed.

 

“August the thirty-first, Year two thousand!” Mabel proudly announced, peering closely at the orrery. “Ooh, Venus was in Pisces! You know, that explains a lot.”

Something occured to Norman. As Mabel cooed over her star chart, he pulled his phone from his jean pocket, checking over the date that Dipper had sent: _March 12th, 1862_.

“I dunno what clues we’re supposed to find here, though,” Mabel was saying. “Maybe there’s something underneath?”

“I -” Norman swallowed. “I think I have an idea.”

 

Mabel watched in disbelief as he put the date in.

“1862? It’s gonna take a while to get to the right position, Norman.”

“Yeah, but…” Norman paused, his hand over the crank. “I got a good feeling about it. Trust me on this one.”

He turned the crank, and there was the familiar grinding noise again - but the planets didn’t move this time. He lifted his hand, the crank freewheeling slightly before coming to a stop.

“That’s… weird.”

“The date’s changing,” Mabel said, indicating the small readout above the dials. “Maybe it just broke ‘cos it’s so far away?”

“Let’s keep going.”

 

They ended up switching crank duty when Norman’s arm got tired, and again when Mabel decided she wanted to call out the years as they passed:  
“Heeeere come the forties!”

“Nineteen-nineteen! Slow down, I wanna savour this year… And there it goes.”

“Turn of the century!”

“Eighteen eighty… nearly there, Norm.”

As they got nearer and nearer to the date, the planets started spinning again, one by one. Norman found himself almost holding his breath as the Earth slowed, completing its final rotation around the sun, and the dial confirmed it: 3|12|1862. They’d made it.

 

They stood side-by-side, looking over the scattered planets. Mabel cleared her throat.

“So, uh… now what?”

“I was kinda hoping something would happen,” Norman admitted. “Like, maybe it’d make a map to where we needed to go next?”

Mabel hummed. “Maybe we got the wrong date?”

She went for the dials, but Norman caught her sleeve.

“I’m _sure_ this is the right one,” he said, chewing his lip. “It’s - I’m certain of it.”

Mabel held his gaze with a worried expression. Then she shrugged, letting her hand fall.

“Alright,” she said. “Let’s have a closer look, then.”

 

They circled the orrery’s great disc, Mabel stooping to peer at the markings around its rim while Norman craned his head, trying to get a top-down view of the arrangement of planets. He’d almost expected them to form a line, or some kind of shape - as it was, there was nothing. He moved around, wondering if maybe a different angle would reveal something, and almost tripped over Mabel with a yell.

“Whoah, _careful_!” she chided, and jerked a thumb at what she’d been kneeling to look at. Norman held his hands up apologetically, folding his long legs under himself to join Mabel at eye height.

 

The two-inch rim around the orrery was painted in a rich royal blue, and divided into segments the length of Norman’s forearm. The one Mabel was pointing at had an old-timey-lookiin illustration of - a lion, Norman guessed, surrounding a smattering of stars. There was a single word etched in the table of the orrery above it: _Leo_ , crowned by an inverted triangle.

“It’s just a hunch,” Mabel said, “but one of the books mentioned that this orrery was supposed to be able to tell the future, right? And what else is related to that - horoscopes!”

Norman nodded. “You think there might be something in these markings, then?”

“Could be.” Mabel shrugged. “Gueverre seemed like he was really into this whole occultism business, so if he was gonna hide some kind of cryptic clue, maybe it’d be related to this?”

 

They moved round, investigating each symbol; Norman discretely prodding, trying to see if there was any give or a secret contraption, while Mabel snapped photos of the painted figures.

“Hey, Norm, what’s your sign?”

“Oh, uh - Scorpio.”

“Neat! I’ll look up your horoscope once we’re done here.”

Norman straightened up, giving her a doubtful look over the top of Neptune.

“Yeesh, you sound like my _mom_ . You don’t really _believe_ in that stuff, do you?”

“Well, why not?”

 

Norman laughed, but Mabel’s gaze was unwavering. “I’m serious,” she continued. “We’ve seen, like, _way_ weirder stuff, right?”

Norman opened his mouth to retort - then shut it again. Mabel kinda had a point, if he was honest; magic and monsters were undeniably _real._ Was it silly of him to doubt astrology when he himself could commune with spirits?

“Besides,” Mabel continued with a grin, “I wanna know your love forecast.”

Norman felt his face heat up.

 

“Wh- what do you think these symbols mean?” he brayed, trying to change the subject. “The ones above the signs, here.”

“Oh! Good eye.” Mabel paused, hovering over Pisces and squinting down at the carving. “You know, this one looks kinda familiar…”

“They’ve all got, uh - triangles,” Norman said, watching Mabel make a show of twirling an imaginary beard. “Some of them are pointing up, and some are pointing down, but I couldn’t find any kind of pattern to it...”

 

Suddenly, Mabel snapped her fingers.

“One second!” she said, before stooping over her phone and furiously typing. She showed Norman the screen with a blinding grin.

“I _knew_ I’d seen them before - they’re alchemical symbols!” She swiped along, tapping insistently with a nail. “Look - air, earth, water and fire.”

 

She joined Norman back at Leo, gesturing to the symbol above it as she chattered. “Each sign of the zodiac has an element associated with it! For example, Leo, a fire sign, has...”

Then she trailed off, frowning. “That’s weird.”

 

Norman peered at her phone screen, then at the symbol over Leo. He’d thought something was odd when he saw it, and this confirmed: the triangle over Leo was the symbol for water, not fire.

“So… they don’t match up?” he offered, craning his neck to look at the adjacent symbol. “Uh, what about Virgo? _That_ one has the symbol for fire above it.”

“But Virgo’s an _earth_ sign,” Mabel muttered, moving away from Norman to the preceding constellation. “OK, we’ve got Cancer here, with the symbol for air… Cancer’s a water sign, right?”

“Don’t look at me, Mabel!”

“It’s a crab, it’s _got_ to be water. If it’s not water, I’m gonna _sue_ someone.”

 

She spun in place, pursing her lips.

“What’s above your next one, Norman?”

“Uh… it’s Libra, with - it’s an upside-down triangle with a line through it.”

Mabel nodded. “That’s earth. What about the next one?”

“The one that looks like fire but has a line through is air, right?”

“Yeah!” He glanced up - Mabel was drumming her fingers in a galloping rhythm on the table of the orrery, the spark of an idea blazing behind her eyes. “What’s next?”

“It’s the one that was above Leo - water?”

“Water! Then it’s fire again, right?”

“I - yeah! Then earth -”

“Then air, then water, fire, earth, air!” Mabel’s hair was swaying as she bounced on the balls of her feet. “They’re all in a pattern, Norman, the same pattern as the zodiac - but they’re _one_ element out of sync!”

“So, what,” Norman said, leaning over the rope and placing his hands on the disc, “we’re supposed to just push -”

 

The disc shifted under his fingertips, and the rest of the sentence died in his throat. Mabel caught his eye from across the table, and waggled her eyebrows.

Slowly, but surely, the disc began to turn. It had been invisible before, but now Norman could see there was a slight seam in between the main disc, with the tracks for the planets and the symbols, and the outer strip where the constellation names were carved.

There was _just enough_ give in the tracks for the disc to slide cleanly past the planets on their stilts as it inched round, and finally came to a stop - Norman met resistance, and there was a mechanical _ca-thunk_ as the disc settled.

 

There, above the constellation of Leo, was the triangle that symbolised fire. Everything was in its place. And as he looked closer, Norman noticed something else, too - there were carved lines that ran over the boundary between the two parts of the disc. Previously they’d all lined up - but after moving the discs the faint inscriptions were slightly offset, and they almost looked like…

“Mabel,” Norman breathed, “I think there’s something written here.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Hey, Jonesy, come have a look at this.”

The fridge door shut with a whirl of cold air. Coraline sauntered into the living room, can of cola in hand. The other arm went to drape over the sofa that Wybie was sitting on, and she leant down to rest her chin on his braids as he indicated his laptop screen with excitement.

“This is the third sighting of this thing in as many weeks,” he explained, scrolling down the blog post - Coraline raised an eyebrow at a dark, blurry photo of the ‘creature’.

 

“Iowa?” she asked, balancing her can on the spine of the sofa so she could crack it open. “That’s two states over, and you and I _both_ know there ain’t much going on in _Iowa_.”

“Ok, I know we _were_ going to hit West Virginia next -”

“Yeah, what happened to the Mothman episode you were so excited about?”

“Epi _sodes_ ,” Wybie emphasised, shrugging Coraline off so he could crane his neck and look up at her. “I just think we should put ‘em on hold for a bit. I know the photos don’t look like much, but I’ve been following this story, and I’m sure it’s the real thing.”

“Well, it’s gonna have to be good to get me to go to _Iowa_.” Coraline took a gulp from her can to lower the level, then swung herself over the low back of the sofa, settling down next to Wybie and tugging the laptop towards her. “Lemme have a look.”

“Hey, no cola on my keyboard, Jones!”

 

They started packing up that evening. Coraline had bought a run-down VW camper van two-some years back, and now it served as their island, able to carry all of their equipment, Wybie’s bike, and whatever meager possessions they took with them on their state-hopping travels. It wasn’t much, but the nomadic lifestyle suited Coraline pretty well, if she was honest.

 

They decided to shoot another video before putting the camera stuff away. Their channel usually updated weekly, and after a brief discussion they decided on a short Q&A - something to placate their watchers and tide them over until the next update. Coraline skimmed the questions as Wybie set up lightboxes and the tripod in the small room they were using as a studio.

“Alright, Jones, and… we’re live.”

“I mean, we’re not _live_ , Wybie,” Coraline chuckled, “you’re gonna edit this nonsense out in post.”

“Film is money, Caroline!”

Coraline rolled her eyes and leaned back in her chair. She fixed the camera with a lopsided smile, taking a moment to prepare her lines.

“Hey guys! So, for this week’s video we’ve got something a little different. I know you’re all hoping to see more of the apartment monster from last week, and we hear you! But there’s been a couple issues getting all the footage together, and so we’re gonna take a little more time working on it so we can get it perfect. Trust me, this is one you won’t wanna miss! In the meantime, my co-star Wybie and I thought we could answer some questions…”

 

They shot about an hour of footage; Wybie would cut it down to a twenty-minute video in editing, and it’d be ready to go on the net around midday the following day. They took down the filming rigs, packing them away carefully - of what money they made off their videos, much of it went into buying, upgrading or replacing their kit (Coraline was guilty of breaking more than one handheld camera).

By that point it was pretty late, and Coraline found herself kicking back and channel-surfing while Wybie looked online for somewhere in Iowa they could stay. AirBnB was always an option, and they’d couch-surfed more than once, but they could usually find a small apartment or studio to put them up for the couple of months they’d spend in any given place.

 

The following day, Coraline made calls to promising-looking landlords while Wybie put the final polish on their video. The editing process was officially collaborative, but they’d been working together for long enough that Coraline trusted Wybie’s creative direction, and it saved her from having to admit she didn’t understand the software he used.

“...yeah, we’re thinking we’ll need the place for maybe two months? Uhuh… yeah, we’re freelancers, so…”

Coraline tucked the mobile underneath her chin as Wybie beckoned her across the room. His fingers were hovering over the ‘upload’ button on the website, and Coraline flashed him a thumbs up.

“Yep… yep, brilliant. Yeah, if you send us the documents… day after tomorrow? Sounds perfect, we’ll be there to meet you then.”

 

The sun was on the edge of the horizon when they finished loading up and set off. Dinner was sandwiches, prepared earlier from what scraps had been in the fridge they left behind, eaten at a rest-stop as a storm brewed overhead.

They crossed into Indiana through a sleepy border town, and Coraline felt her eyes starting to droop. Wybie was practically nocturnal by nature, and late night-driving was pretty much the norm for them. As the suburban roads gave into a wide, empty highway, Coraline leant against the passenger door and was content to doze as they drove into the night.

 

“ _Jesus-!_ ”

The shout jolted Coraline awake. She had a moment to take in Wybie’s panicked face, and _something_ squatting in the beam of the headlights on the road before them, before the car swerved and lurched with a loud _bang_.

Wybie wrestled with the wheel, and the van wallowed, nearly capsizing for one heart-stopping moment before it settled, diagonally across the road. Coraline’s hand was already at her seatbelt, unclipping it and sliding out of the passenger door.

 

There was a shape, the size of a large dog, lying in a heap in the red glow of the car’s breaklights. Beyond it the road stretched into blackness. There was no telltale glimmer of headlights coming up the road towards them - they were well and truly alone.

The lump shifted, and Coraline’s breath caught in her throat.

“Wybie,” she whispered, “what the fuck did we just hit?”

 

Wybie was still gripping the steering wheel, back rigid and shoulders trembling from adrenaline. “I - I didn’t see -” He gulped. “Some k-kinda deer?”

There was a low groan from behind the car. Coraline slowly turned her head, watching out of the corner of her her eye as the shape twitched, heaving itself up on spindly legs, unfurling a long neck towards the ground -

It _definitely_ didn’t look like a deer any more.

“Get in the car,” Wybie said in a hushed voice. His wide eyes were fixed on the rearview mirror.

 

The shape made an almost-human sound, and took a shuddering step towards her. Coraline wrenched her eyes away, flinging herself into the passenger seat, and Wybie hit the gas before she could even get the door closed. There was an angry shriek from behind them - then, silence. When Coraline got her seatbelt sorted and checked the rear mirror, there was nothing but empty highway behind them.

She gave a shaky sigh, sinking down into the seat.

“Any idea what the hell that was?” she asked. Wybie shook his head, tight-lipped.

 

On cross-country drives like this, they’d often sleep in the van, parked at the side of the road. But tonight, by unspoken agreement, Wybie drove until they hit the next gas station, and they parked ‘til morning underneath the comfortless glow of the pump lights.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YEAH CORALINE  
> and with that i'm done with the chapters i had backlogged! like i mentioned, hoping to roll out updates once or twice a month from now.  
> as before, this is un-beta'd, so please excuse any awkwardness.


	4. Five of Swords

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neil gets a call.

“How did you know what date to put in?”

Norman started, hand sliding against his face where he’d dozed off. Mabel was laying on her motel bed, staring up at the ceiling. Norman rubbed his wrist across his eyes, drowsily trying to remember who he was and what he was doing here.

“Hmm?”

“The date for the orrery.” Mabel wasn’t looking at him as Norman rose to his feet, absent-mindedly dislodging a sodden pizza box from his lap - her gaze was resolutely fixed on the peeling off-white plaster above her. “We tried with other dates - that configuration was the only one that the disc could move on. How’d you know it was special?”

 

Right. The orrery. Norman ran a hand through his hair, cricking his neck. After taking down the code from the orrery, they’d spent another half hour messing about with the machine, seeing whether it had any other secrets to reveal; no luck. They’d hung around in the museum trying to crack the code until closing time, then retreated back to their motel room to continue the work.

The initial excitement at finding something had cooled as they’d hit a wall - the code was impenetrable. As well as letters, there were several strokes that they couldn’t recognise from the English alphabets - runes, perhaps - as well as brackets and slashes that Norman had no idea about and might not have even been part of the code. Norman stole a glance at his watch - it was past eleven.

“Mabel, we should probably worry about this in the morning,” he murmured, stretching his back with a hollow crack. “It’s getting late -”

“You’re dodging the question.”

 

Something in Mabel’s voice made him freeze. There was a beat. Then she sighed, and there was a shuffling of sheets as she moved to sit up.

“The date was special,” she repeated. “Whatever lead you to it - like, if it had some significance for Gueverre - that could also have a clue for this code. I’m just… trying to think about all the possibilities.”

 

Norman licked his lips. The thought of just  _ telling _ Mabel the truth - that Dipper had finally responded to his messages, tipped him off to the clue behind the orrery - briefly crossed his mind. But - he’d already kept the truth from her  _ once _ \- and to his sleep-addled brain, the easier option was the clear decision.

“Like I said, it was - just a hunch.” He scratched the back of his neck, and had a sudden thought. “It was the day he died,” he added. “Gueverre. He - his ghost mentioned it to be, back at the Falls.”

Mabel tipped her head. “He knew the day he was going to die when he built the orrery?”

Ah. Norman fumbled, trying to find a save. “I - ah - y-yeah, I guess so. The… that article said the orrery could see the future, right? Maybe… Gueverre used it to predict his own death before he added the code.”

 

Mabel’s brows furrowed.

“Do you think it really could see the future, then?” she asked. “The guy  _ wasn’t _ just some kook obsessed with the occult?”

“His artifacts are important enough that Stan  _ and _ Dipper are going after them,” Norman said. “I’d say it’s a real possibility.”

Mabel pursed her lips. Then she nodded, and let herself fall back on the bed.

“So that was a bust, then,” she exhaled. “Now what?”

“It’s getting late,” Norman repeated gently. “We’re not gonna make any more progress on it tonight. We should get a good night’s sleep and focus on it tomorrow.”

 

Mabel rolled onto her front with a muffled groan. Norman pulled himself to his feet and shuffled into the bathroom, fumbling for his toothbrush at the sink. He lost himself staring into the mirror, chewing the bristles absentmindedly. When he came back out Mabel was watching something on her phone, and it took Norman a moment to place the familiar voice coming out through the tinny speakers:

“ _...have suggested a crossbow, but you can’t exactly slip one of those into a pocket, y’know? _ ”

“Coraline put up a new vid,” Mabel told him over the muffled discussion of weapon carry laws. “It’s, like, a Q&A.”

“Oh? I thought she was on the trail of some kinda nasty dog-monster.” The lie came unbidden to his lips, and Norman instantly felt a pang of guilt at deceiving Mabel further.

“Mm. She said they needed a while to sort the footage.” Mabel was twirling a lock of her hair around one finger as she spoke, gaze unfocused. “I guess it’s safer for her to be doing this than running around abandoned apartments looking for trouble.”

 

Norman turned, tugging his shirt over his head and reaching for his pajamas. He thumbed the collar, awkwardly fishing for some way to carry on the conversation without giving himself away.

“Coraline knows what she’s doing,” he managed, shuffling out of his jeans. “She’s been in some rough scrapes before and come through ok.”

“I…” Mabel bit her lip, eyes lingering in the corner of the room. There was a moment of tension before she sighed, concerned expression melting with a shake of her head. Her eyes fell to Norman, coming to rest upon his calf. “Hey, that’s new.”

“Huh? Oh, right!”

The change in conversation topic was a lifeline he’d eagerly grab. Norman tugged the hems of his boxers down, trying not to feel self-conscious as he turned his leg to show off the tattoo there. “Yeah, I got it done about six months ago? I thought the leg was a pretty safe place, since my, uh… my dad would  _ flip _ if he saw it, haha.”

“ _ Radical _ ,” Mabel said, inching forward. “Mind if I…?”

 

He perched on the edge of the bed, legs crossed, and Mabel mirrored him, leaning forward to check out the ink. It was about the size of his hand, in a new-school style with lurid tones of green and pink.

“The zombie is a classic choice,” Mabel said, nodding sagely. “I’d say give this guy a  _ hand _ , but he’s already got one!”

“The pose is, uh, a reference to The Evil Dead,” Norman explained, nodding at the disembodied limb the zombie was eagerly clutching. “It’s a real classic - one of the defining movies of the genre, made on a shoestring budget, too. It’s one of those movies that’s a real inspiration to amateur filmmakers.”

“Like you?”

Norman’s lips twisted in a wry smile. “Y-yeah, actually.”

“Speaking of, how’s that all going for you?” Mabel cupped her cheeks in her hands, leaning forward eagerly. “You’re doing filmography at college, right?”

“Yeah! It’s going great…”

As easily as that, the shame melted guiltlessly off his shoulders. They sat talking and laughing into the dark hours of the morning, the promise of an early night and the rigours of a day before forgotten without a thought.

 

* * *

 

 

Norman stirred.

There was golden summer sunlight streaming in through the attic window; in the comforting heat of the room, he must have dozed off. He’d managed to get himself wedged in the crook of the sofa, and his limbs felt pleasantly numb.

He cast his gaze about the room. The other sofa was against the wall - he remembered the struggle it had been to lug it up here with a chuckle - and Mabel and Wybie were sitting on it, chatting animatedly about their favourite Pokemon. Raz was listening to the conversation idly, sprawled along the back of the sofa and soaking up sunbeams like a cat.

Coraline and Lili were sitting cross-legged together on the floor; the latter was having her nails painted. It had taken her a while to open up to the rest of the group, especially Coraline, so it made Norman smile to see Lili acting so casual and relaxed.

Neil was sat with his back against the armrest of the sofa; over his crop of ginger hair Norman could see the panels of the comic he was reading. And on the other end of the sofa, watching the rest of the group with an idle smile on his face, was Dipper.

 

Norman realised his legs were across Dipper’s lap, and he shifted, feeling his face heat up. The movement made Dipper glance over at him, gaze focusing and eyes sparkling like a lake on a summer’s day.

“Hey there!” He gave Norman a thumbs-up. “Glad to see you rejoin the world of the living, man.”

Norman hummed, easing himself out of the chasm between the sofa cushions. He still felt disoriented - this whole scene was fuzzy, like a blurry photograph. Dipper’s smile faded.

“Sorry I didn’t wake you,” he said, rubbing the back of his head - he wasn’t wearing his hat, Norman noticed, and he found his eyes getting lost in Dipper’s soft, hazel curls. “You looked like you needed the rest, though.”

 

Norman rubbed his brow. His limbs were loose and wobbly.

“This isn’t right,” he said slowly. “This already happened, a - a long time ago. I’m not... I’m not  _ here _ .”

“Are you okay, Norman?” Dipper was leaning in, his face scrunched in worry. His hand moved to rest on Norman’s knee, and the touch was warm like sunlight. “You sound like you’re still half-asleep.”

“Dipper, I’m - I’m not -”

 

Norman’s alarm was ringing.

 

He let it buzz to the count of ten, hoping that he could ignore it, and sleep would sucker him back in. Then he snuck a hand from under the sheets, fumbling on the bedside table until he found the phone and turned the damned thing off.

He sat up, trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes. It was seven o’clock, and the square motel room was cast in a dull grey light through the tattered curtains. Across from him, Mabel was stirring in her bed, her hair a blackish mass in the colourless gloom.

 

Norman slid out of bed and crossed over to the window, parting the curtains slightly to look out. The pane was like ice under his fingertips, and through it he could see the city, spread out across the river, the colour of dust in the weak light. Somewhere, behind a bank of clouds, dawn was breaking.

 

He sighed, breath spreading like mist across the window before fading. What was he doing here?

 

They had breakfast from the bar of uninspiring cereals provided by the motel, and when they returned to their room, Mabel spread a stack of papers from her luggage out over the bedsheets. They were the scans and newspaper clippings from the Shack, she explained as she shuffled through them, hoping to find some clue that would help them solve the code on the orrery.

But there was no such luck, much less any mention of how the orrery was supposed to help them find the Engine - or how  _ any _ of the other “artifacts” were supposed to help, either. A few of the texts referenced that there were four of them, but from the articles Norman could only even find  _ mention _ of two others. One was called the “Ever-north Lodestone”, but there was no description or location listed that he could see; the other was barely referenced, a throwaway comment about Guevere’s apparent fascination with the Holy Grail, and how he attempted to craft his own version of it.

 

Norman must have read the article on the lodestone four times over before admitted to himself none of it was going in. Something about the atmosphere of the room felt stifling, and his eyes couldn’t focus on the lines of text.

They spent half an hour trying to go through the papers before breaking. Mabel let herself topple back on the bed, sending a flurry of papers up in her wake.

“Forget this,” she huffed. “Let’s take this outside, or something.”

 

They walked side-by-side along the river. It was a warmer day today, the sun’s rays breaking through gaps in the low banks of cloud, and the air was pleasantly fresh. They found a bench in the park and sat in comfortable silence, watching the fragments of blue sky pass lazily above them.

Norman tugged out the stack of clippings, indulging in the pretense of looking through them. To his side, he saw Mabel flicking through the pictures of Gueverre’s tomb on her phone, chin cupped in her hand.

“Do you still have the central stone you took from in the middle?” she asked offhandedly. Norman nodded.

“I took it with me,” he said. “I’m not sure why, but I felt like it was important.”

Mabel hummed. “It didn’t have any code or anything on it, though. And the rest of this… I just don’t know what to make of it.”

She sighed, slumping over on the bench and letting the hand with the phone droop. “I dunno, it feels like we’re missing a piece of the puzzle. Or maybe I’m just too dumb to figure it out,” she added, voice muffled against her sleeve.

 

Norman shook his head, scooting along the bench to reach an arm around Mabel’s shoulders.

“Don’t say that,” he said. “If this has been unsolved for, like, a hundred and fifty years - it’s not gonna be a walk in the park. Besides, you’ve been amazing with this so far! I wouldn’t even know where to start with half of this stuff.”

Mabel lifted her head, giving him a wan smile. “Thanks,” she said. “Sorry to be a big ol’ Debbie Downer over all this.”

“Nah, I get it.” Norman turned his head, looking over the park. It was a Saturday, and even in the cool weather it was bustling with people - families, dog walkers, couples - all living their happy, mundane lives. He spotted a ghost, as well, patchy like mist in the speckled beams of sunlight - a wistful onlooker through this window into normalcy.

“You’re frustrated,” he continued. “I am too, don’t get me wrong. But it’s not like we don’t have any leads, right?”

 

Mabel raised her eyebrow, and in response he shuffled through the papers on his lap, showing her the excerpt he’d been reading earlier.

“It says that he hid the clues to his - y’know - anyway, that there were four of them. If the orrery is one, then maybe we need the codes on all four before we can start making progress.”

Mabel straightened up, scanning the passage with narrowed eyes. “Okay,” she said slowly. “Then where’s our next port of call?”

Norman let his shoulders sag. “That’s the bad news. I’ve read all of these back to front, and the orrery is the only one that I could find a solid location for - there’s barely anything on the other three, or what they even  _ are _ .”

 

Mabel nodded. “Maybe we should do some research on our own, then. If there’s a chance that we need something from the other artifacts, there’s no point banging our head against the wall trying to find these - we need to track the others down, pronto.”

She got to her feet, stretching her hands above her head with a groan. “But more importantly, all this thinking is making me hungry. Let’s go get some snacks.”

 

They ducked into a convenience store, returning triumphantly with a bag of chips. Someone else had claimed their bench, so instead they wandered down to the riverside to eat, Mabel tossing every other handful of chips to the flock of ducks that congregated eagerly by the bank.

“Most birds don’t mind the flavour, but waterfowl have a strong preference for BBQ,” she informed Norman with a straight face. “It’s because there are no naturally occuring sources of BBQ flavouring underwater, so they have to get it into their diet from other means.”

“That makes sense,” Norman nodded. “What other means?”

Mabel shrugged. “Photosynthesis.”

 

They bounced around town for the rest of the day. Mabel had brought her laptop in her backpack, and at lunchtime they sat down in a nearby café to take advantage of its WiFi.

“I had a hunch,” she said around a mouthful of her sandwich, fingers flying over the keys, “and I looked up the Antonia person from the museum - the one Gueverre made the orrery for. There’s not much online about  _ him _ , but for her I got a whole bunch of hits.”

She spun the screen around to show Norman. “Her family was super wealthy, and she was infamous for bankrolling a bunch of these sketchy organisations - think the Freemasons.”

Norman skimmed over the list of names -  _ Order of the Golden Dawn, Rite of the Eastern Star _ \- with mounting alarm.

“Okay,” he said, “so she funded a bunch of cults. And…?”

 

Mabel pulled the laptop back towards herself. “ _ And _ , when she had kids, they kept up the legacy.  _ Until _ , that is, the most recent heiress.” She paused, clicking the trackpad insistently, and spun the screen around to Norman again. This time, there was the image of a woman, with ashy-brown hair and an expensive-looking necklace.

“This is Violet Strauss,” Mabel explained, tapping the image. “She came into possession of Antonia’s estate about a decade ago, but there’s a  _ ton _ of drama surrounding the succession - some people say she wasn’t next in line, there’s rumour of illegitimacy, blah blah blah…”

She rolled her eyes, before leaning forward across the table, snapping the laptop shut.

 

“Reading between the lines,” she said in a hushed voice, “it looks like Violet had a big falling out with the organisations that her family’s been supporting. She cut ties, stopped funding - and  _ she’s _ the one who donated the orrery to the museum, after so long of it being in the family.”

“But why?” Norman frowned. “If that had been the status quo for so long, why rock the boat?” He paused. “Do you think she knew about…?”

“I don’t know,” Mabel said. “But right now it’s our best shot.”

  
  


Contact details for the woman were sparse, but Mabel managed to dig up an email address. Norman scooted his chair around to Mabel’s side of the table, and they sat staring at the empty  _ compose email _ window. If Violet  _ did _ know about Gueverre’s secret - or at least have suspicions - it’d be dangerous to be too overt about it. 

They decided to pose as students researching the orrery for a project - “if we say we have family in Gravity Falls,” Norman reasoned, “it’d make sense we’re looking into the guy, right?” They’d ‘been given the email address from someone at the museum’, and were ‘interested to learn more about the artifact and its history’.

“Yours truly…” 

Mabel tailed off, fingers hovering uncertainly over the keyboard. She chewed her lip, deep in thought. “I don’t know what to put.”

“Use a fake name, I guess?”

“Yeah, but - if she looks it up, and doesn’t find any hints, she might immediately become suspicious,” Mabel said. “But at the same time, if I use my  _ real _ name…”

 

She trailed off, letting the words hang. Norman crossed his arms, rocking back in his chair.

“What if you… use your real  _ last _ name,” he said, after a moment, “but make up a first name.”

Mabel turned to look at him as the chair clattered back to the floor.

“Stan’s pretty well known in the Falls, right?” Norman continued, and she nodded. “Then, if you sign it as the same last name as him, it kinda - gives it more legitimacy, right? Like, ‘oh,  _ that _ Pines’ - but then if you change the first name, you’re not  _ directly _ tying it to yourself.”

“Norman,” Mabel said, eyes sparkling, “you are a  _ genius _ .”

  
  


With the email sent, they took a walk under the pretense of ‘trying to come up with more ideas’, but it quickly degenerated into a sightseeing trip. The sky cleared as the afternoon wore on, casting the riverside town in clear winter sunlight.

The two of them found a bridge over the river, and stood overlooking the passers-by on the trail below; people-watching quickly devolved into a game of Mabel’s infamous ‘Dreamboat Alert’.

“What about that guy?” she asked, discretely pointing her elbow. “He’s walking two dogs. That’s  _ instant _ husband material.”

Norman followed her direction, looking the guy up and down. “Nice smile,” he admitted, “but I really don’t think that beard is doing it for me.”

“Hmm… it’s kinda lumberjack, right?”

“It’s kinda lumberjack! Which I get, I guess, but it’s not really my style.”

 

He cast his eyes along the trail, picking out another stranger in a dark coat and white scarf.

“Now,  _ that _ guy looks like he writes poetry. A sensitive soul, you know? Which is something I think I could vibe with.”

Mabel made a face. “Yeah, poetry about  _ darkness and spiders _ , maybe. Is it just ‘cos he’s a goth? That’s it, isn’t it?”

Norman shrugged innocently.

“Maybe. Maybe.”

“It is and you know it!”

 

She jabbed him playfully on the shoulder, and they laughed, their voices almost lost against the rumble of water below. Suddenly there was a rush of cold air, and Norman leant away from the bridge’s handrail with a yelp as the updraft splattered cold water against his face. He lifted his arm to wipe it away when something caught his eye.

There was a pigeon, perched atop the clawed boughs of a beech tree. He couldn’t say why, but there was something off about it. Its dark silhouette against the pale sky was setting him on edge.

“Hey, Mabel,” he said in hushed tones, “call me crazy, but I… do you think there’s anything weird about that bird?”

Mabel followed his gaze, face scrunched in a frown - before lighting up in a smile as she noticed it.

“What, that pigeon? Geeze, and I thought my  _ brother _ was the paranoid one. C’mon, Norm,” she laughed, elbowing him playfully. “What’s scary about pigeons? They’re the dumplings of the sky!”

The pigeon craned its neck, staring through Norman from the size of its head. Its round body fuzzed and flickered, and Norman could feel a buzzing ache building between his temples. He forced himself to avert his gaze.

“Y-yeah,” he stuttered, feeling a cold sweat bead under his shirt. “I guess so.”

 

They made their way back to the motel, and were halfway across the lobby when a voice called out to them.

“You’re the two in room 305, right?”

Mabel turned in surprise, nodding at the receptionist, who folded her hands together in front of her on the desk. “Wonderful. There was someone here from the museum asking after you earlier this morning.”

She moved to type something out on her computer, and Mabel discretely caught Norman’s gaze; her eyes were wide and worried.

“I’ll just let them know you’re here, then.”

Norman opened his mouth to speak, but Mabel was faster.

“We were planning to check out today, actually,” she said, elbowing Norman towards the stairway up to their floor. “Maybe we can leave contact details for them?”

“Oh, I’m sure that won’t be necessary,” the receptionist said sweetly. “It’s only a few minutes’ walk from here, they should be here in no time!”

Mabel took a step towards the counter, subtly pushing Norman behind her. He took the hint, and started moving slowly towards the stairs.

“I’m sorry, but we’re really in a hurry - we’re meeting our grandparents -”

“It should only take a few minutes, dear -”

 

The sound of their conversation was muted as Norman shut the door to the stairwell behind him, and took a shaky breath.

He ascended the stairs two at a time, and his hands were shaking as he unlocked the door to the motel. He didn’t know how, but he had a feeling that they were in trouble.

He cast his eyes around the room, before grabbing his rucksack and starting to bundle things into it with a frenzied haste. They needed to get out of there, and fast. Cosmetics and toiletries were swept from the shelf in the bathroom into his bag without a second thought. Mabel’s sports bag was on her bed, and Norman shoved her clothes into it by the fistful. His phone buzzed in his back pocket, and he scanned the messages as he zipped the bag up with his other hand.

 

Mabel, 5:46PM

theyr here

ill stall. bring van around

 

Norman pulled his own rucksack on and slung Mabel’s bag around his shoulders, stumbling a little with the weight. He hurried down the stairs, coming to an unsteady halt when he reached the bottom.

There, through the small window into the foyer, he could see Mabel. She was talking to a figure wearing a black-and-white uniform and a police vest. Their back was to Norman.

He desperately waved through the small window, and after a few agonising moments, Mabel met his gaze. He couldn’t hear what was being said, but he saw Mabel gesture upwards, and she and the figure made their way to the elevator at the other end of the lobby. Norman held his breath until the elevator doors shut before bolting out of the stairwell and through the reception.

 

The car was where he’d parked it. He’d been half-expecting the wheel to be clamped, or the windshield smashed in, or worse; but it was mercifully untouched. He swung the bags over the back seats and clambered in, heart in his mouth as he turned the key once - twice - and the engine finally sputtered to life. He threw it in reverse, tires squealing as he swung around and came to a stop underneath the window of their room, engine rumbling.

This was where Mabel had meant, right? She was leading the figure up to their room, surely. Norman chewed his thumbnail, his other hand tapping an anxious rhythm on the wheel. Was this the right room? He was  _ sure _ it was this side of the building, but the curtains were closed, he couldn’t see in. Maybe he had it wrong. Mabel could be somewhere else, and he was waiting here, no help to anyone -

 

There was movement, and suddenly the curtains were flung open. Mabel was at the window, fiddling with it for a moment before grabbing the underside and pulling it up. She spent a moment looking at the ground, before turning back towards the room - had she seen him? She must have seen him, right?

Norman wound the window down, leaning out and willing himself to somehow hear even a sliver of the conversation. Mabel was talking animatedly - he saw the pink flash of her sleeves as she gestured, then leant back, one hand on the windowsill. She was dangerously close to the edge - Norman saw the glint of metal -

 

Without warning, Mabel vaulted onto the windowsill, swinging her legs over. Norman heard a yell. Mabel hesitated for only a second, before launching herself off and tumbling down the three-story drop.

There was something in her hand, and Norman saw the cord of the grappling hook  _ snap _ taut - Mabel smacked against the side of the building, curling reflexively with the impact - but she was no longer freefalling, the hook slowing her descent. She hit the ground at speed, stumbling and falling to her knees, but the next moment she was up, glancing behind her and giving the cord a sharp tug - Norman heard the hook clatter to the floor - and then she was running towards the van, throwing herself into the passenger seat as Norman saw a figure appear in the open window.

 

He punched the gas, and the engine roared as they shot away from the building. Mabel turned in her seat, watching the road behind them with wide eyes as they pulled away.

But as they sped along the river and joined the freeway, there was nothing. No sirens, no cars chasing them - just the normal flow of evening traffic, heading east out of the city.

 

They pulled over at the first rest stop they found. Norman’s hands were white-knuckled at the wheel as he yanked the handbreak up and curled into himself. His breathing was harsh and ragged, and his throat felt like sandpaper. There were white stars dancing at the edges of his vision, and he screwed his eyes shut, leaning his forehead against the wheel and willing his thundering heart rate to slow down.

“Hey… Norm?” Mabel’s voice sounded distant, echoing. “Norman, are you okay?”

The car felt too small, suddenly, too hot, and the claustrophobia was choking. Norman fumbled with his seatbelt and threw himself against the door, clambering out on shaking legs. He staggered away, drawing in desperate lungfuls of cold air, the sticky scent of petrol making his head swim. He - he needed to get away -

 

There was the clatter of the car door being shut, and then a voice from behind, soft and reassuring.

“Norman. Hey. You’re with me, buddy.”

It was Mabel, by his side. Norman’s skin was prickling, like there were tendrils of electricity branching off and latching on to anything that got too close - but she was keeping her distance, giving him his space.

“Is it alright if I touch your shoulder?” she was saying. Norman’s first instinct was no,  _ no, stay away _ , but the rational part of his brain shoved it down. It was  _ Mabel _ . It would be fine. He swallowed, and nodded, his throat feeling too tight to speak.

 

Then Mabel’s hand was on his shoulder, heavy, itchy, and she was gently steering him around the other side of the car - Norman dimly realised he’d been heading towards the road. They walked a few paces, on to the bank of grass encircling the rest stop, and Mabel moved so she was facing Norman, her hand still on him like an anchor.

“Norman,” she said, “ _ breathe _ . Ok? Just breathe.”

Norman’s fingers were curling and uncurling, trying to somehow dispel this restless energy that was building up in him like a static charge. He swallowed thickly, and tried to focus on slowing his breathing. 

“You’re panicking,” Mabel continued. “We had a close call, and now your brain is freaking out, but it’s ok. We’re ok. We’re safe.”

Norman nodded mutely. He distantly remembered one of his mom’s yoga videos - breathe in through the nose, hold it for three… then out through the mouth, hold for three. Breathe in… breathe out. Slowly, the stuttering in his chest started to smooth out, and he felt his shoulders sag as he unwound like a spring.

His arms were leaden, and it took some effort to bring his hand up, across his body, to rest on Mabel’s on his shoulder.

“I’m okay,” he said hoarsely. His voice sounded like it was coming from somewhere behind him. “I think I just - I just need a few minutes…”

Mabel was leaning in, studying his face intently. Then she took a small step back, and let her hand fall from his shoulder; Norman gave her a weak smile.

“I’m gonna go buy you a bottle of water,” she said, speaking slowly and clearly and taking another step towards the gas station. “Are you gonna be okay here?”

“Yeah,” Norman said. He licked his lips, mouth suddenly feeling dry and tingly. “W-water would be - great, thanks.”

 

Mabel nodded.

“Just relax,” she said, moving backwards so she was still faced towards him. “Call someone if you need to. I’ll just be a few minutes.”

Then she turned, striding purposefully towards the station mart and disappearing between its sliding glass doors.

 

Norman exhaled shakily, lowering himself down onto the damp grass. He still felt oddly weightless, disconnected from everything around him, and loneliness was already starting to set in.

Pushing it down, he dug around in his pocket, fingers trembling as he dialed a number on his phone.

 

* * *

 

 

“Good hustle out there, champ!”

Neil tugged the towel from around his neck, beaming as the coach slapped him on the shoulder.

“Thanks, Mister Mollenhauer.”

“You keep this up, and you could give your brother a real run for his money, you know!”

Neil rolled his eyes, but flashed the coach a thumbs up as he went to chat with the rest of the team.

 

Seven years ago he’d never have pegged himself as a footballer - but maybe what Coach Mollenhauer said was true, it  _ did _ run in the family. He’d never have the sculpted, athletic body of his brother, maybe, but when you were a linebacker being twice the weight of some of the other players was a pretty good deal. Besides, it was fun, and a good way to destress at the end of the day.

 

His hair was still wet from the shower, and the cool January air hitting it made him shiver as he stepped outside. He slung his gym bag over his shoulder, tugged his hoodie up around his neck and was moving to put his earbuds in when his phone rang.

Huh. That was weird. Weirder  _ still _ , he realised, looking over the screen as it rumbled in his hand, it was from  _ Norman _ . Norman, who never made a phone call if he could help it.

Neil answered, and grimly brought the phone up to his ear. This had to be serious.

 

“Helllllllo?”

“Neil!” Norman’s voice was grainy through the speaker - he must have been somewhere with shoddy connection. He sounded weirdly out of breath. “You’re - you - how are you?”

Neil frowned. “More importantly, bud, how are  _ you _ ? You sound like, seriously freaked out right now. Is everything ok?”

“Yeah! Yeah, no, everything - everything’s…” There was a rustling on the end of the line, and a sigh. “We had a close call - I, I’m fine, but I just really need to talk to someone right now.”

“Oh.” Neil blinked. “Uh, ok. Do you want me to just… tell you about my day, and stuff?”

“Yeah,” came the breathless response, “sure, a-anything.”

“Well, ok! Um… I just got out of football practise. That was pretty good.”

“Oh, yeah? You - you mentioned something about that. How’s it going?”

“Great, yeah!” Neil started to walk, his bag rasping against his jacket with every step. “I guess the jock genes really do run in my family. I still can’t run great ‘cus of my asthma, but I don’t need to - Coach just has me stand in the way of the other guys and catch them with my big ‘ol arms.”

 

On the other end of the receiver, Norman gave a quiet, bubbling laugh that caused a grin to split Neil’s face.

“Oh, and my parents got a new dog last month!”

“Really? That’s great! What, uh… what kind is it?”

“It’s a little spaniel,” Neil gushed, “and her name is Betsy, but I call her Pepsi, because she’s brown like carmel syrup.”

“Pepsi is a really good name for a dog,” Norman said, and Neil nodded vigorously before remembering that Norman couldn’t actually see him.

“You gotta be careful, though,” he continued, “because she’s a face-licker, and I know where that tongue’s been, pal! You can’t fool me! But I let her lick my face anyway, because I can’t resist her wily charm.”

“Wily? I’ve never seen a dog I’d describe as  _ wily _ .”

“Well, you’ve never met Pepsi!” Neil chuckled. “You should come visit her next time we’re both back in Blythe Hollow.”

“Yeah,” Norman replied. “I’d like that.”

 

The walk back to his room on campus was less than ten minutes, but Neil lingered outside the door to the block, fidgeting with his keys as they chatted about weather, and grades, and other stuff. The strain in Norman’s voice had faded, his laughter becoming more genuine as the conversation had gone on, and Neil was reminded of how effortless it was to keep the conversation going. That was why they were still friends, he supposed.

“Hey, um…” Norman paused. “I should probably be going, but, uh… thanks for this.”

“Anytime, broseph!”

There was a snicker from down the line, and Neil raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“I’m sorry, I just - I can’t believe you say  _ broseph _ now,” Norman giggled. “You really  _ are _ a jock!”

“I’ve finally discovered my true self,” Neil said solemnly, to more stifled giggles from his phone. “It’s all footballs from here. Hey, do you think I could get people to start calling me ‘Big N’?”

 

He held with a grin until Norman’s laughter had finally died down.

“For real, though, I’m always happy to chat. See how you’re getting on. How  _ are _ you doing, by the way? Not to nose about in your business, but it sounded like you were in a bad sich earlier.”

For a moment, there was silence - Neil wondered if he shouldn’t have asked, but then Norman spoke up again.

“I - I’ll message you about it later,” he said. “I’m safe, so - so don’t worry about that, it’s just, there... there’s a lot going on right now.”

“No rush, man,” Neil said. “Stay safe, ok? And remember, I’m always here if you need to chat.”

“Yeah,” Norman replied. “Thanks.”

 

Then there was a beep, and he hung up.

* * *

  
  


With nowhere to go, they followed the interstate eastwards.

Mabel took over driving - despite Norman’s protests about insurance, his nerves were still shot, and he was content to be relegated to a passenger as they wound past the river, it eventually opening out into a wide estuary. They cut through a thick pine forest, the road striped with shadows as the sun sank between the tips of the trees.

They pulled into a small valley town, and Norman sat in the car while Mabel went into a run-down looking BnB. Their room had a single window overlooking the road - Mabel pulled the curtains decisively shut.

 

Norman went about his pre-bed routine robotically. It was only when he was perched on the bed, idly watching Mabel put her hair up, that he thought to say something. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, trying to find the right words.

“Thanks, by the way,” he eventually managed. “For… y’know, earlier.”

“Of course,” Mabel said. “Does it happen often?”

Norman met her gaze; her expression was gentle, but her eyes were piercing. It felt like she was looking right through him.

“No,” he said after a moment. “Not - like that, at least. Sometimes I - there are more minor, uh… but I can usually deal with those okay. This wasn’t like that at all.”

He folded his arms in, running his thumb absentmindedly back and forth inside the opening of his sleeve. “If you weren’t there, I don’t… I probably would have done something really stupid. So, thanks.”

“Of course,” Mabel said. “Me and Dipper, we…”

She cut herself off, pulling a handful of hair over her shoulder and combing her fingers through it. “We got used to being there for each other,” she said instead, suddenly seeming shy, uncertain. “So, when I saw you were… I guess it was kind of second nature.”

Norman nodded. “Do you, uh…?”

 

Mabel gave a hollow laugh. She let her hair fall in front of her face, cutting her lifeless smile in two.

“We’ve seen a lot of shit, Norman,” she said. “The kind of stuff that stays with you. We’ll be okay someday, but… for now, I’m not holding my breath.”

  
  


Me, 10:47PM  
hiya  
norm said he’d message u earlier but he conked out as soon as his head hit the pillow  
so i’m sending u a quick upd8 instead 

 

☆*Neil!*☆ o(≧▽≦)o, 10:51PM  
Hi Mabel!!  
How's he doing? 

 

Me  
he’s gonna be o-kay  
we just had a bit of a scare :/ 

 

☆*Neil!*☆ o(≧▽≦)o  
Aw geeze :(  
What happend? 

 

Me   
long story short, we’re investigating sth here and some ppl found out abt it  
NOT THE COPS!! dw dw 

 

☆*Neil!*☆ o(≧▽≦)o   
O_O  
OH phew!! 

 

Me   
at least i dont think so >~>  
neway we managed to give em the slip  
but norm was pretty shaken, n i think the stress from the past coupl days just got to him :C 

 

☆*Neil!*☆ o(≧▽≦)o   
:(((  
How are you doing? That must have been realy scary 

 

Me, 10:53PM   
i’ll be alright  
but thanks 

 

☆*Neil!*☆ o(≧▽≦)o   
Of course!  
If you ever want to chat to someone, either of you, I’m always there :) 

 

Me   
ur the man, neil  
thx 

  
  


Norman woke, once, in the night. 

It sounded like someone was crying. He sat up drearily in his bed, and there was a sudden, sharp intake of breath. The noise stopped.

“I - I’m sorry,” came a whisper - it took him a moment to remember that it was Mabel’s voice. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Norman had a feeling that in that moment he was forgetting something important. But a moment later it was gone, and he laid back down, the sound of stuttering, unsteady breathing becoming distant as sleep overtook him once more.

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and with that, chapter 4!  
> sorry about the delay in getting this out, exam season's coming up so i wanted to work up a bit of a chapter buffer. at the moment i have chapter 5 almost done as well, so between now and the end of my exams at the end of may there will be at least that going up. maybe i'll also be able to squeeze in chapter 6 before the end of next month? we'll see, haha. we'll see.


	5. Four of Swords

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Monsters are sought and found.

“So, is there anything you can tell us about the monster?”

The shop clerk looked between Coraline and the camera, eyes narrowed suspiciously. She was about fifty, Coraline reckoned, and had been running the convenience store they were now in for easily half that. She - Coraline paused to discreetly check the nametag -  _ Francisca _ \- appeared to be sizing the two of them up.

“I ain’t believe it meself, I should mention,” she said after a moment, leaning one hip against the counter. “Reck’n it’s just a hoax, made up by some  _ kids  _ to scare people.”

Coraline only nodded patiently. “That’s certainly possible,” she said. “Even more often, it’s no  _ monster _ \- someone just saw a wild dog and got excited.”

Francisca nodded smugly - but Coraline wasn’t finished.

“But,” she said, holding a hand up, “if it  _ is _ just a dog, from what we’ve heard it’s not scared of humans. If it’s acting aggressively, then that means it could be a danger to the people who live around here. That means it’s just as important to find out what’s going on and report it to the local authorities.”

At her side, Wybie nodded, shifting the camera.

“We’re not here to sensationalise anything, Ms. Orteg,” he said. “We just want the truth.”

 

Francisca drew back, eyeing the two of them. Then she nodded.

“Alright,” she said, “here’s what I know.”

 

Twenty minutes later, they were sitting on the steps across from the store, Coraline fidgeting with a pack of gum as Wybie checked over the footage.

“Think we got anything useful?” she asked, tossing a piece in her mouth and offering him another.

“Dunno,” he shrugged. “A few lines, maybe? It’s clear she hasn’t seen the thing herself, and eyewitness accounts are what we  _ really _ want - but some of the leads she gave might be good. Oh, thanks.”

She dropped the gum into his open palm, watching in mild horror as he bit it in half and pocketed the remainder.

“What?” he said, catching her expression. “I’m saving it.”

 

Gathering info had never been Coraline’s favourite part of the hunt. Over time they’d gotten better at spotting the real stories from the fakes, but there was always the chance that they would roll into a place and just find nothing, or that it was clearly a hoax. When there  _ was _ the seed of legitimacy, it was often hard to wring it out of whatever witnesses they could find. The camera lent them some authenticity, but there were a lot of people who would outright dismiss them as amateur cryptology nutcases - and Coraline didn’t consider herself a patient person at the best of times.

Still, the audiences loved it. It helped to build up what Wybie called the ‘narrative’ of the hunt, and more importantly it gave them more material to work with. Coraline had to admit, she was glad her co-producer had a handle on this kind of stuff - if it had been just her making these videos, it’d have been maybe a blurry clip of her punching something in the face every month or so.

 

She checked her watch. It had just gone noon. They’d been planning to ask some of the local kids - if nothing else, they could always be relied upon for outlandish stories - but the school wouldn’t get out for another few hours. The shop clerk had pointed them towards a farmhouse, a mile or so out of town, whose inhabitants, she said, had most recently seen the monster, but Wybie had suggested they save it for later in the afternoon and get everything they could from the locals first.

For now, that meant going from door-to-door with the camera in hand and a polite smile on their faces. Coraline had gotten pretty good at faking it over the last few years.

 

Their initial sweep of the area turned out to be mostly a bust. While there were a few people who were willing to talk enthusiastically about the new local cryptid (and to  _ not _ immediately slam the door in their faces), it became increasingly clear that almost nobody in the town had seen it.

“Maybe it keeps to the outskirts more?” Wybie offered, as they shut the door on another dead end. “All the reported sightings I found were nocturnal - could be it’s afraid of lights.”

Coraline groaned. “If that’s the case, then we’re wasting our time here.”

“Chin up, Jonesy. You only have to fake being nice to people for a few more hours.”

 

When it hit three, they posted up outside the gates of the local high school. Within minutes, the students pouring out had formed a small crowd around them, drawn by the allure of the camera lens. Interviewing kids meant more stupid questions but less haughty skepticism, which was a trade-off Coraline was more than happy to make.

“Are you making a TV show?”

“It’s for a web documentary,” Wybie clarified. “We investigate unexplained paranormal happenings.”

“Like bigfoot?” someone piped up. Wybie frowned.

“Well, we’ve never actually -”

“Yeah,” Coraline cut in, “like bigfoot.”

She stepped forward into the small ring the students had naturally formed, elbowing Wybie out of the way. “Right now we’re looking for a creature that’s been spotted around here. We’d like to interview a few of you guys as part of our documentary.”

A low buzz started up among the crowd. Coraline watched as the kids chattered and jostled -

“The Groaner-”

“Didn’t your brother? -”

“There was that -”

“- no, that was -”

“Hey!”

Two of them broke ranks, stumbling out into the center. One of them - a boy, about fifteen at Coraline’s best guess - was dragging the other with an eager grin on his face.

“Jackie’s seen it!” he said, giving the camera a wave. “C’mon, haven’t you?”

“ _ No _ ,” the girl shot back, yanking her elbow out of his grip. “God, you’re always like this -”

“Uhh,  _ yeah _ you did, you were talking about it yesterday! You kept boasting about how you snuck in to Mister Mackevoy’s -”

Jackie thumped him on the arm, and he cringed backwards, whimpering. Coraline raised an eyebrow.

“Alright, don’t say anything you don’t want repeated to the whole  _ internet _ ,” she said, to a peal of laughter from the crowd. 

“Yeah, you don’t want  _ another _ week of detention!” someone yelled from the back. Jackie turned, glowering.

“Who said that? Bea, you asshole, if you wanna go -”

As the group erupted into squabbles, Wybie nudged Coraline, pointing to the girl and then bouncing his eyebrows with a smirk. Coraline rolled her eyes.

“Hey, now, you can bitch about each other later,” she called over the crowd, stepping forward to break up the brewing argument. “But listen, Jackie, if you  _ have _ seen this thing - we’d really love to hear about it.”

She gestured to Wybie, who gave her a thumbs-up from behind the camera. Jackie turned, looking the two of them up and down.

 

“What are you gonna do if you find the Groaner?” she asked. “You gon’ kill it?”

Coraline folded her arms.

“Probably not,” she said. “That’s not what we’re here for.  If it’s aggressive, then we’ll report it - maybe try and chase it off. If it attacks us, then we’ll do what we have to. But we aren’t here to try and get  _ rid _ of it, we want to  _ learn _ about it.”

Jackie squinted. “It could be dangerous,” she said. “I heard it tried to bite someone.”

Coraline shrugged. “Loads of things are dangerous. Lions and bears and stuff. If you’re making a nature program about lions, you don’t try and kill all of them, do ya? These creatures are just trying to live their lives, same as we are. We don’t need to kill them, we just need to understand them, enough for us to stop them hurting people.”

There was a murmur of assent from the crowd. Jackie pursed her lips. Then she leant back, hands on her waist, and nodded.

 

“Fine,” she said. “Yeah, I seen the Groaner. And yeah, I  _ did _ sneak in to that old loony’s cornfields two nights ago. What about it?”

“You mean Mackevoy, right?” Coraline pressed. “The farmer? That’s a ways out. What were you doing there?”

Jackie flushed.

“Lookin’ for something,” she mumbled. “That ain’t important! What  _ is _ important is that I saw it.”

“Can you describe it for us?” Wybie asked, and she nodded.

“A’first I thought it was a coyote,” she said. “It was about yay high, kinda dog-shaped. It was slinking in between the rows of corn, so I didn’t really get a good look in.”

She took a deep breath, shoulders suddenly going rigid.

“But then it... started making this horrible noise. A deep kinda wheezing and groaning. It sounded halfway to a death rattle.”

Jackie shook her head, face grim. “Ain’t no coyote that makes that kinda noise. Ain’t no natural animal on Earth.”

 

There was a moment of dead silence.

“Well,” Wybie said, “that explains the name.”

  
  


As Wybie packed the camera into his backpack, Coraline tugged her helmet on.

“Two alleged sightings,” she said, tightening the straps. “Same time, same place. Either this is a  _ very _ elaborate hoax, or we’re on to something.”

“And  _ you _ said nothing happened in Iowa,” Wybie preened. “C’mon, can I pick ‘em or can I  _ pick  _ ‘em?”

“Okay, Wybourne, don’t push it.”

He donned his own helmet and swung one leg over the motorbike, tossing Coraline the backpack as she went to sit pillion. The engine rumbled to life, Wybie taxiing on his tiptoes before they picked up speed and pulled away.

The van was spacious, and sturdy, and reliable, but the bike was  _ fun _ . It was a rugged BMW in a sleek black and chrome colour scheme, and Wybie spent every other free moment tinkering with it, fine tuning this or that until the engine purred  _ just _ right. Wherever they went, the bike came with; it had gotten them out of more than a few scrapes in the past two years they’d had it.

 

It took them almost no time to reach Mackevoy’s farmhouse outside of town. The land was flat enough here that the sky loomed huge above them, rolling storm clouds casting a premature twilight.

The farmhouse door was opened by an older man with a thickly built figure. He had a break-action shotgun slung over one shoulder; Coraline tried not to let it spook her as she spoke.

“Hi there. We’re looking for Mr Mackevoy…?”

The man furrowed his brow, jaw working from side to side.

“Aye,” he said. “That’s me.”

Coraline weighed up whether or not to go for a handshake, decided it was a terrible idea, and instead opted for a polite smile.

“Pleased to meet you, sir,” she said. “I’m Coraline, and this is my coworker Wybie. We’re here to ask -”

“I don’t like that camera.” Mackevoy was glaring at Wybie, index finger tapping a nervous rhythm on the butt of his gun. “Put it away.”

“Oh, of - of course.” Wybie lowered it from his shoulder, fumbling to turn it off and unslinging his backpack to put it away.

“We’re here filming a documentary -” Coraline began.

“Don’t care. No cameras.”

“- but of course, we respect your privacy.”

 

Wybie zipped up the backpack, and Mackevoy nodded, placated.

“You kids’re here lookin’ for the thing that’s been sniffin’ about my land, ain’t’cha?” He stepped out of the house, latching the door shut behind him, and started walking. “I’ll tell you what I know, but only so we can get it taken care of. I’on’t want any more a’them teenage hooligans stickin’ their noses where they don’t belong.”

“Has it been a problem?” Wybie asked, and Mackevoy rounded on him.

“Has it been a  _ problem? _ ” he spat, eyes blazing in the creases of his face. “Them kids’ll take any excuse to stomp all over my land. Damned delinquents.” He leant back with a sniff, thumb tracing the bolt of his rifle. “Someone oughta remind ‘em it’s legal to shoot varmint on your property.”

“I’m sorry to hear this creature has been causing problems for you,” Coraline interjected smoothly. “We’ve heard reports it’s been aggressive, so we’re hoping we’ll be able to help drive it off your land.”

Mackevoy gave a hard laugh.

“Drive it off, shoot it, put it in a zoo f’r all I care,” he said. “I just want the damned thing gone.”

 

He lead them past the farmhouse and down a worn dirt path.

“It came by here two nights ago. I ain’t got much of a look at it,” he said, coming to a stop, “but I did find these.”

Coraline followed his gaze. There, faint but unmistakable in the dried mud, was a line of tracks. She knelt to inspect them, tracing the indent of one paw pad.

“Good thing y’got here when y’did,” Mackevoy chuckled, looking up at the sky. “The rain’ll be coming down soon, and that’ll wash them tracks clean away.”

 

Wybie stooped to examine the tracks, rifling through his backpack to pull out a pack of paper and a pen.

“I’m gonna take a sketch,” he told Coraline, who nodded.

“We heard reports that the creature looked like a coyote,” she told Mackevoy, who scoffed. “You think these tracks corroborate that?”

“Only if you’re never seen ‘yote tracks before,” Mackevoy replied with a shake of his head. “The shape ain’t right, they’re too long, and the spacing’s all off.”

“He’s right,” Wybie added, nudging Coraline’s leg from his position on the floor. “Look how deep the nail indents are. That’s unusual in canine tracks - this thing must hold its weight pretty weirdly.”

“Are these the only set of tracks?” Coraline asked.

“Only ones I’ve found,” Mackevoy said. “I’ve kept my eye open, but I ain’t exactly gone lookin’ for this thing.”

 

Coraline took a few paces back, examining the tracks. In one direction they lead into a cornfield, disappearing in between the waist-high stalks. No leads there, then. In the other…

“What’s in that direction?” she asked, gesturing with a thumb. “It looks like that’s where the tracks lead.”

“Aye,” Mackevoy said. “That’s down by the henhouse. S’where my niece saw it, after it slipped away from me.”

“Someone else saw it?” Wybie clambered to his feet, looking between the two of them eagerly. “Could we talk to her?”

Mackevoy made a dismissive noise.

“She ain’t around,” he said, turning his head to avoid making their gaze. “Prob’ly in town or summat.”

He scrunched his face, grip tightening around the butt of his rifle.

“She’s a good girl, though, y’hear?” he hollered, effect diminished by the fact he was directing his words towards the ground. “You two keep her out’ta this. Don’t want you running around, pollutin’ her head with nonsense an’ folk tales.”

“If-” Coraline began, but Wybie silenced her with an elbow to the ribs.

“Of course, Mr. Mackevoy,” he said, nodding. “We understand.”

 

Coraline shook him off, shooting him a nasty look before nodding as well.

“Our next step is to try and find this thing, and this was the last place it was seen,” she said. “With your permission we’d like to set up a camera trap here and keep an eye on it overnight.”

For a moment it looked like Mackevoy was about to object. Then he wilted.

“If it keeps my Suzanne out of it,” he said, “then do what y’need to.”

  
  


As soon as he was out of earshot, Wybie turned to Coraline.

“Ok, is it just me or is that guy a  _ total fucking nutjob? _ ” he hissed. “I was worried he’d put a bullet in me if I so much as  _ looked _ at him funny.”

“You’re worrying too much,” Coraline said. “Besides, that’s illegal.”

“Oh, great, yeah, so my  _ ghost  _ can take him to court -”

 

They clambered on to the bike, speeding back towards town as thunder rolled overhead. The creature - the ‘Groaner’, as the locals called it - had reportedly only been seen after nightfall. That meant they had about an hour and a half to get back to their new flat in Cedar Falls, cobble together a camera trap out of what they had there, come back, and get it set up. Then? They would wait.

The bike made short work of the fifteen-minute trip back up the highway. They pulled up to the garage first, Wybie sifting through boxes until he found what he was looking for. It helped that the creature was approximately coyote-sized and coyote-shaped; they could refit an old box trap they’d use previously. They had a brief squabble over what to use to bait the trap, eventually deciding on dog food (Coraline would never admit it, but after a few bad experiences the smell of raw meat made her stomach churn).

 

The trap was simple enough to set up - a small box cage with a swinging door when it entered. It was rigged to one smaller camera, and as they hunkered down a hundred paces from it Wybie had the lens of his other camera trained on it. After that, there was nothing to do but wait, as twilight fell and the storm started to break above them.

 

* * *

 

They spent the day driving aimlessly east, drifting without an anchor. Mabel was behind the wheel by unspoken agreement, and Norman let the scenery flit by, his mind in turmoil. 

The only common thread, the only recurring conclusion he kept coming to, was that this was  _ his _ fault. He’d wanted so badly to help - to be useful - to find Dipper, and save the day, and get some kind of meaning back in his life. But he’d failed. Now, he was dead weight, and Mabel would have to pick up the pieces.

What did she  _ think _ of him? He’d seen this kind of behaviour before, from his dad. The averted gaze, the silent treatment, all of it betraying complete and utter disappointment in him. He’d never say it in words, not after the incident with Aggie, at least - a small, bitter part of Norman’s mind said his dad was afraid of him after all that. But the actions, the gestures, said it just as clearly - and in Norman’s opinion, were far crueler.

 

Part of him wanted to fight back, to put up anew the walls he’d spent so long trying to break down. It wanted to say vile, unkind things about Mabel. This was easy for her - she and her brother got to have an exciting life, while he had to suffer through a suffocatingly normal one. He was the one with the gift, wasn’t he? He was the one that should have been special. But she was treating this whole thing like it was a chore, like Norman was just someone she had to babysit, like he was weak and fragile. She was ungrateful. He’d trade places with her in an instant, she had no idea what he’d give to go on adventures, to be with Dipper -

 

_ Dipper. _

The name was like a breath of cool air, pulling Norman out from the spiraling deluge of ugly thoughts.

He needed to focus on why they were there. If  _ they _ were drawing heat, then what did that mean for Dipper? They had to make sure he was safe. That was all that mattered right now. He -

 

There was a  _ crack _ from overhead, whip-sharp and booming, and Norman yelped as the car jerked forward. The engine seemed to be winding up, whining and clattering, and Mabel was white-knuckled as she firmly pressed the breaks. They ground to a halt at the side of the road, the engine sputtering and dying as the dashboard lights flickered out.

Then, there was silence.

Mabel took a deep breath. Norman saw her mouthing a count of ten, and then she turned the ignition to try and restart the car. There was a sputtering, clicking noise - then nothing.

 

Norman leaned over, tapping a few buttons on the dash experimentally. They had no headlights, no hazards - Mabel flicked the windscreen wipers on and was met with only a tired whirr.

“Battery’s dead,” Norman muttered. “I - I mean, that’s what it looks like.”

“Do you have a jumpstart kit?”

“Yeah, there’s one in the boot - hold on a sec.”

Norman wriggled free of his seatbelt and slid out the passenger seat. The land here rose and fell in leisurely waves, and the road was cupped between the pine forests that loomed on either side. Dusk had begun to fall, and the horizon was painted an unearly yellow-green, like the sky before a storm. The air felt strangely heavy, electric in a way Norman could almost taste. He ran his tongue across the inside of his teeth, feeling at once on-edge and uncharacteristically emboldened.

 

There was a clatter from behind him as Mabel lifted the hood on the van.

“Doesn’t look too bad,” she called. “No smoke, so that’s something. Have you got that jumpstarter?”

“O-oh, sure. One sec.”

He unearthed it from under the pile of luggage in the boot and brought it round to the front of the van. As Mabel tugged out the leads, he spun in place, staring out into the rising forests. A gust of wind tousled the treetops, and Norman felt a tingle run up his spine, hot and bright.

“There’s something out there,” he murmured; then, louder so that Mabel could hear, “stay by the car.”

“Wait, wh - Norman!”

 

Norman’s gangly legs took him away from the van and up onto the verge in swift strides. He didn’t turn until Mabel called his name again - she was still clutching the jump leads, staring at him with wide-eyed agitation.

“Where are you going?!”

“There’s - there’s something out there,” he repeated. “You stay here, I’m going to go check it out.”

“What are you  _ talking _ about?”

Mabel dropped the leads, leaving the clips to tinkle across the floor as she took a step towards Norman, then another. “Our van’s broken down, and you want to go - run off into the woods?”

 

Norman fought the rising urge to clench his hands into fists.

“I told you, there’s  _ something _ , I can feel it. I want to go -”

“Norman, will you  _ listen _ to yourself!” Mabel had crossed onto the grass and was glaring up at him, worry and confusion written across her face. “It’s getting dark, our car doesn’t work, and you want to go into those woods,  _ alone _ -”

“That’s why you should stay and -”

“This is a terrible idea!”

“This is what we  _ do _ , Mabel!” Norman took another pace backwards, gesturing at the woods. “We’re the  _ Mystery Kids _ , remember? I - I can  _ feel _ there’s something here, something that could be important. If you’d just let me -”

“Listen, Norman, this is a  _ bad idea _ .” Mabel said. “Just drop it, okay? Just come back to the car, and forget about this whole dumb ‘adventure’.”

 

Her gaze was hard, but Norman was undeterred. He could feel the spark of something rising inside him, everything that had happened over the past week burning in his mind like kindling, and he was sick of bottling it up.

“What happened to the Mabel I used to know, huh?” he asked incredulously. “The Mabel who used to love ‘adventures’, who was always there with a bright smile or a word with encouragement. What  _ happened  _ to her?”

“ _ Life happened! _ ” Mabel flung her hands up. “She grew up and decided to start living in the real world, ok, not some stupid fantasy!”

She turned on Norman, eyes furious, and he found himself speechless.

“I know you think this is some kinda  _ game _ ,” she snapped, “some big  _ adventure _ , but it’s  _ not _ ! This stuff is  _ dangerous _ , and you need to grow the hell up and realise that!”

“I don’t-” Norman protested, but Mabel yelled over him.

“I know you’re enjoying being dragged halfway across the country because Dipper doesn’t care enough about us to let us know what’s going on, but I’m  _ not _ . I’m - frustrated, and angry, and worried sick because  _ god _ knows if something’s happened to him, and when we  _ find _ his sorry ass I’m going back to Portland where I have a job, and a house, and things are  _ normal. _ ”

 

“How?” Norman hated raising his voice, but he found himself starting to match Mabel’s pitch. “How  _ can _ you? How can you just - leave all this behind? Act like all of the things we’ve seen, the crazy stuff we’ve done, like none of that ever happened?”

“You wanna know  _ how? _ ” There were tears sparkling in Mabel’s eyes - Norman didn’t know if they were from anger, or frustration, or something else, but in the moment he didn’t care. “Because it’s a hell of a lot easier than knowing your brother’s, or your best friend’s, or your girlfriend’s  _ life _ is constantly in danger! All of this shit is nothing but trouble! It already nearly destroyed my Grunkle’s lives - I’m  _ not _ gonna let it ruin mine.”

 

Norman was silent for a moment. When he spoke, the words were quiet, seething with more vitriol than he’d known he’d possessed.

“Does that go for me, too?”

Mabel flinched at his tone. For a moment, there was genuine confusion on her face.

“I - what do you -”

“I see ghosts,” Norman said. “Remember? I’m  _ not _ normal, and I never  _ will _ be. Does that make me dangerous? Or did you conveniently forget that?”

 

It was like Mabel had deflated - all her anger, all her fire gone in a second.

“Look, Norman, that isn’t what I -”

“ _ Isn’t it? _ ” A snarl twisted Norman’s face. “I think it was clear what you meant. Maybe you’re right, you  _ shouldn’t _ associate with me. After all, it’s worked out great for everyone  _ else _ who abandoned me when they found out what I was like! I guess it was only a matter of time.”

The tears in Mabel’s eyes had welled up and were spilling down her cheeks. Norman’s own face also felt hot and flushed, but he ignored it.

“Norman,” she said, “Norman, please, I -”

“Go ahead, say it!” Norman crowed. “You’re better off without me! I’m a  _ freak! _ ”

 

Silence.

Norman’s own words were ringing in his ears. He was suddenly aware of how his voice had cracked, how his breathing was fast and ragged and his heartbeat was thundering in his skull. Mabel was sniffling. She’d curled into herself, and was looking up at him with a face that -

He couldn’t take it.

Norman didn’t think. He turned and ran.

 

* * *

 

Stupid.

_ Stupid _ .

Why was he doing this?

 

A branch came at Norman’s face. He ducked, brought his arm up to bash it away, and kept running.

 

What was he hoping to achieve?

 

A jutting tree root was higher than he’d expected. It caught his sneaker, and he stumbled, nearly falling.

 

It wasn’t too late to turn around, to go back to the car and - 

He almost laughed.

Yes, it was.

 

He’d been struggling uphill, but now the slope evened out, and he had to catch himself as it took a sharp, sudden dip. It was - he paused for just a moment, chest heaving, worried that if he took too long the fire inside would go out and he’d be left adrift - it was that way, along the ridge and further up.

 

He set off again, mud splattering his legs as he ran. His mind felt oddly clear, the kind of calm you can only feel standing on the edge of a cliff, about to fall. He was tuned into this  _ presence _ he could feel like a radio picking up a signal. It was strong, getting stronger as he closed in, but somehow still… unclear. It was like there was static eating up whatever signal was coming through, a strange kind of crackling, buzzing about the edges of his consciousness.

It had become familiar to him recently. When had he started noticing? A week? Two? Maybe a month? Since this whole trouble started -

He couldn’t worry about that now, though.

 

One foot in front of the other - come on, Norman, pick up the pace! His legs were aching, but he dragged himself forward, breathing fast and heavy and desperate. He was nearly there, he was certain of it - 

_ There _ ! Between the trunks of the pines he could see it, a large silhouette looming against the twilit sky. He  _ knew _ there was something out here, he’d been right all along -

 

He vaulted a log, skidding to a stop on the carpet of damp moss, and it raised its head towards him.

From a distance, he almost might have mistaken it for an elk. It was huge, easily a foot taller than Norman was at the shoulder, and its head hung low under the weight of two long, gnarled antlers. Its breath was coming out like huge clouds of steam, and its eyes were flickering pinpricks.

 

It took a step towards him, and Norman froze.

His mind was suddenly blank. The thing was advancing slowly, with long loping strides, but Norman’s feet were rooted to the floor. He tried to think through the sudden haze of panic. What had been his plan? Go into the woods, find whatever was in here…

It extended its long neck and bellowed, and Norman’s train of thought was shattered. He gave a cry, clamping his hands over his ears and hunching over. The sound was  _ awful _ . It reverberated along the inside of his skull, a guttural moan overlaid with a scraping, crackling hiss like the high whine of a power drill. The volume was deafening, and when it stopped it left his head ringing.

It took another step forward, and he took a step back. What had he been  _ thinking _ ? He couldn’t fight this thing. He wasn’t strong enough, or fast enough, or brave enough. Not like - 

“ _ Norman! _ ”

Like Mabel.

 

There was a hiss, and then the forest around him was lit up in blazing red light. Norman saw the flare arc high in the air, and come down next to the beast. It reared up, braying in surprise, throwing a massive, dancing shadow on the trees around it. In the light of the flare Norman saw Mabel, in front and to the side, poised and focused.

The thing gave a cry, tossing its head and lumbering towards Mabel with frightening speed - but she was already running, away across the ridge. Norman watched desperately as she, and then the beast, disappeared into the treeline.

He had to follow.

His legs were suddenly unfrozen, and he stumbled forward before breaking out into a run. Dusk had begun to fall, and it was hard to make out where they’d gone - there was a crash, the sound of something heavy breaking wood - then another flare that lit up the silhouettes of the trees.

He ran desperately towards it, clutching his head as the beast gave another cry that pierced his temple. He could see huge, dancing shadows, thrown against the trees like shadow puppets - the creature, rearing and screeching, and the scent of burning hair -

There was a yell from Mabel, and Norman battered away a tangle of branches in time to see her tossed like a ragdoll against a tree. She slid down the trunk, unmoving, and Norman’s breath caught in his throat.

He turned, fiercely blinking away the afterimages of the flare - it took a moment to find the dark shape of the creature. Its flanks were heaving, pungent black smoke rising up from its side where Mabel had hit it with the flare; but the wound only seemed to have made it angrier. It was advancing towards where Mabel lay with long, uneven strides.

Norman dug his nails into his palms, desperately looking between them. He - he  _ had _ to do something, but the infernal buzzing in his head was making it impossible to think. He screwed his eyes shut, reaching up to grip his temples as his breathing grew shallow.

There was something he was missing here, there had to be. He could sense this thing, or something  _ in _ it - that faint, prickling awareness he’d come to associate with ghosts, with spirits, except so much  _ worse _ . But that didn’t make sense! It wasn’t dead.

It -

He paused.

_ Wasn’t _ it?

Norman sucked in a deep breath. It was like Dipper had always said - he had to think about this logically, rationally. Whatever it  _ was _ , he could sense it, which meant maybe - somehow - some part of it  _ was _ dead.

And if it was dead - at least, if part of it was - then maybe he had a chance.

He opened his eyes, and stepped out into its path.

The thing tossed its head, stomped its feet, and locked eyes with him.

“Hey,” Norman said softly.

It took a slow step forwards, towards him. Norman swallowed thickly, stooping slightly to make himself seem less threatening and bracing one hand in front of him.

“You can hear me, right?” he called to it. “It’s okay. We aren’t gonna hurt you any more.”

 

It took another step forward, bowing its head to study him intently with its candle-flame eyes. Norman held its gaze, fighting to keep his expression sedate and calm. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Mabel struggling to stand.

“Norman,” she hissed, “wh- what are you doing?”

Norman drew a sharp breath.

“Just - trust me. Please.”

 

Mabel watched with wide eyes as the beast slowly drew closer. Its movements were stiff and cautious, but not aggressive - that was something at least, Norman told himself as he tried not to panic. Up close, its size became truly apparent. Even with its neck bowed, it towered over him. Its antlers were wider than his armspan, twisted like ancient tree boughs and topped by a crown of vicious spikes. Worse, the closer it got, the worse the static in his head became. Norman chewed his lip, breathing hard and unsteadily. Just a little further…

 

It came to a stop in front of him, blotting out the light of the setting sun. It bent close, its nostrils millimeters from his fingertips, and Norman could feel its hot breath across his palm. His own breath seemed to catch in his throat as it blinked slowly.

The static was overwhelming. Norman’s teeth were buzzing in his mouth, and he felt like his skull would shatter. The beast’s skin felt hot, radiating some kind of energy that made his fingertips itch and tingle. Every part of his brain was saying this was  _ bad _ , that he should  _ get away _ , but he’d made it this far. He was  _ certain _ this was the right thing to do.

 

He reached forward, and his fingertips touched lightly against its snout.

The silence seemed to stretch out and consume them. Its skin was gently furred, soft and slightly damp - maybe sticky with something. He could feel something surging within it - almost like a heartbeat, pulsing beneath the skin of his fingertips. There was no turmoil or anger within it, not any more. Its gaze was steady and hopeful.

 

A sound rang out through the forest, and the moment was gone. The beast pulled away, eyes wide and ears alert as it stared off into the distance. It scuffed its hoof on the forest floor, turning with short, anxious steps.

Then it leapt, bounding off through the trees, and was gone.

 

Norman exhaled. He hadn’t realised how much his head had been spinning, and as he brought a hand up to his temple he felt himself totter unsteadily. He took a step back, other hand flailing into open air, but Mabel caught him before he collapsed.

“C’mon,” she said. “Let’s get you back to the car.”

  
  


The short walk back was all downhill. Even so, by the time the road came in sight Norman felt like his legs were about to give out. He allowed himself to slump down on the grassy verge as Mabel propped up the hood on the van and set about sorting it out. The clink of metal and grinding of screws being loosened had nearly lulled him asleep when the engine finally purred to life. Then there were footsteps, and the rustle of grass next to him as Mabel sat down.

“I’m gonna let it run for a bit,” she said. “See if we can get a bit of juice back in the battery.”

 

The silence stretched between them for a few moments. Then Mabel let out a long breath, and Norman cracked an eye open as she shifted.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I’ve been a major-league doofus.”

Norman still felt too lethargic to sit up, but from his position on the ground he could see her silhouette against the twilit sky. She had her arms around her legs, chin tucked into her knees, and she was facing away from him.

“Yeah,” he croaked. “Me too.”

“The truth is…” Mabel sighed. “I  _ am _ afraid. I’m worried about what’s happened to my Grunkles, and Dipper, and I’m scared for what could happen to  _ us _ as well. But I should never have lashed out at you for it.”

She sighed again, leaning back to look up at the sky. “I never meant any of it about  _ you _ , Norman, you’re one of the best buds I have. I’ve just been bottling it up for so long that, when it came to it, I ended up saying some really stupid stuff.”

 

“Hey,” Norman said, “it’s okay to talk about these things. You don’t have to keep it all to yourself.”

“I got so used to being the cheerful one all the time.” Mabel wriggled until she was propped up on her elbows, her head almost level with Norman’s. Her voice was hushed and somber next to his ear. “That’s the Mabel people  _ like _ \- the one who’s silly and goofy and dumb, and doesn’t bother other people with her feelings, or her fears, or…”

She trailed off. With a great effort, Norman shifted so that he was lying on his side.

“I don’t like goofy Mabel,” he said, “I like  _ real _ Mabel. We  _ all _ do.”

“I don’t want to burden you with all this negative junk, though -”

“Hey, hey, whoah.” Norman knew it probably wasn’t visible in the pale dusk, but he gave Mabel a weak smile. “You’re  _ never _ a burden, Mabel. When you’re scared, or worried, friends are there to  _ help _ you. That’s what they’re  _ for _ .”

 

Mabel didn’t answer, instead letting her head loll forward, shoulders drooping. They stayed in silence in that quiet, private moment, the only sounds the rustling of the pine trees behind them and the hum of the van’s engine. Far off, Norman could hear the distant rumble of cars moving on the highway, like rushing water.

“My Grandma used to have a saying,” he said eventually. “She’d say, ‘there’s nothing wrong with being scared… so long as you don’t let it change who you are’.”

“She sounds like a pretty amazing lady,” Mabel said. Norman gave a hushed laugh.

“Yeah,” he said. “She was.”

 

* * *

 

“Jonesey, did you -”

“Yeah. I heard it.”

The sound of the storm around them was deafening, the rain lashing like a snare drum against the tarp of their makeshift shelter - but even above that, the low groan that rang out over the cornfields had been unmissable. Coraline narrowed her eyes, peering out across through the haze of falling water, trying to spot -

“There!”

She seized Wybie’s wrist, pointing with her other hand. A single dark shape had parted the corn, a hundred yards or so from their hiding place. They watched with baited breath as it slunk out onto the path, pacing slowly towards where they’d laid the trap. Its movements were unnatural, somehow - it reminded Coraline of a puppet, or a claymation figure.

“I think it’s gonna go for it,” Wybie whispered, as it bent its head low, scenting the air. “It’s -”

Coraline shushed him. Her eyes were glued on the creature as it crept towards the trap, its wide mouth silhouetted as it reached down for a mouthful of the bait. It was so close - just a little further…

 

Its back leg cleared the trap, and there was an echoing  _ click _ as the latch was set off and the door swung shut.

Beside her, Wybie pumped his fist in a silent victory gesture. Then he went rigid as a rasping, guttural cry rang out across the farmland.

The creature was struggling, trying to break free of the trap. At this distance it was hard to make out, but Coraline thought she saw it stretching - contorting - limbs flailing and distending in ways that looked like a nightmarish video game glitch brought to life. And the noise - god, the  _ noise _ . It was screaming, cry raw and warbling, sounding both chillingly alien and uncomfortably human.

 

It convulsed one last time - there was the screech of rending metal, and Coraline saw the cage door fly five, ten feet in the air - then the creature was off, scrambling across the rain-soaked ground, and disappeared into the night.

Wybie was the first to move, getting to his feet and pulling his waterproof tighter around himself as he stepped out of their shelter. He said something that was whisked away by the storm, and Coraline frowned.

“What?” she hollered, and he turned to look at her.

“I  _ said _ , we better have gotten that all on camera!”  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this one's a little late! i'd hoped for it to be earlier in the month but, y'know, finals. the good news is i'm now free for the rest of the summer, which means i might be able to get two chapters up next month. fingers crossed!


	6. Ten of Wands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Unlikely allies, unexpected enemies.  
> (warnings for alcohol consumption, mild harrassment)

Stan brought the binoculars up to his face.

The warehouse was unassuming at first glance. A long, squat building with grey steel plating, it stood about three hundred yards away from the next building in the complex - a hi-rise office block that served as the place’s headquarters. A covered walkway ran between them, large enough to run a truck through.

Security wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. A chain-linked fence topped with a coil of barbed wire ran along the perimeter, and there were two guards on either side of the only entrance Stan could see. He twitched the focus knob -  _ armed _ guards, at that. He’d broken into  _ more _ heavily guarded places, but he didn’t want to risk a brush with those rifles if he could help it.

 

He lowered the binoculars, sucking in through his teeth.

“Y’ _ sure _ this is the place we’re lookin’ for?”

At his side, Ford nodded.

“Positive.”

Stan just sighed, and ran a hand through his greyed hair.

 

The two of them were lying prone on a grassy bank, half a mile or so from the facility. Stan handed the binoculars back to Ford, who pocketed them and pulled a small tablet device from the recesses of his coat.

“Here’s the shipping manifesto I managed to leak,” he said after a few seconds, fingers dancing across the screen. “It should have been delivered last night. Given the disruption with their logistics, it’s likely going into processing tomorrow morning.”

Stan rubbed his chin, wincing at the crop of bristles there. It had been a while since either of them had had a chance to shave.

“Why didn’t we grab it en route, then? Seems like perfect timing.”

“It would have been in an unmarked van,” Ford replied with a shake of his head. “One of dozens making its way into the facility, and there’s no way to get a trace on its signature while it’s moving - the signal is too weak.”

“It’s never easy,” Stan grumbled. “So what’s the plan? We hit this place tonight?”

Ford nodded. Another moment, and he’d brought up an aerial view of the warehouse. He slid it under Stan’s nose, tapping the screen.

“I’m going to see if I can source blueprints, but once we get inside I’ll be able to track its energy source, just like last time.”

“Oh, because  _ last time _ went so well,” Stan muttered. “And whaddaya mean,  _ once  _ we get inside-”

“That’s a minor detail,” Ford said humorously, waving his hand. “Besides, if half the stunts you’ve bragged about really happened, getting into  _ this _ place should prove no trouble.”

Stan sighed again, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose underneath his glasses.

“Then we’d better get to work.”

 

* * *

  
  


The sun was high in the sky when Norman awoke.

He sat up slowly, groaning at the stiffness in his neck. Last night was a blur - the encounter in the forest, and the subsequent heart-to-heart with Mabel, had left him exhausted, emotionally and physically. He cracked his neck with a wince, glancing about the cabin room they were currently in.

Mabel was sitting cross-legged on the bed next to him, poring over her laptop. At the rustle of sheets, she looked up, and the frown on her face was quickly replaced with a beaming smile.

“Morning!” she chirped, moving her laptop to one side and swinging her legs out over the side of the bed. “You slept in a little, but I think you could still catch breakfast if you hurried.”

Norman gave his best effort at returning the smile. “Thanks, but - I’m not really hungry.”

He tried to make it sound casual, but Mabel’s face fell a little. “You sure?” she asked. “It’s only crummy motel cereal, but-”

Norman cut across her, eyes downcast but voice firm. “I wanted to talk about last night.”

 

Mabel gave a quiet gasp. Then she nodded, laying her hands on her lap. “Ok.”

Norman tugged his legs free of the covers, stretching his arms above his head and trying to blink the drowsiness out of his eyes. “The deer,” he said after a moment, willing the memories into focus. “There was - something important about it.”

He slid out of bed, pacing the room as the events of the night slowly coalesced through the haze of sleep. “It was dead. I think. Or - well, it wasn’t  _ dead _ , but -”

He trailed off. On the other side of the room, Mabel was frowning. Apparently, this wasn’t the conversation she’d been expecting.

“It was  _ dead _ ?” she replied slowly. “You mean - like a ghost?”

Norman wound his fingers through one another, trying to find the words to explain it. “I - so, it  _ wasn’t _ a ghost, of course, but it was - it felt kind of like…”

He turned back to her, running one hand through his hair, and blew out a sigh. “Uh, so I should probably start with - I don’t really have any idea of how any of this  _ works _ . Like, I know we worked a few things out, but most of it is just…” He shrugged. Mabel, to her credit, simply nodded.

 

“Ok,” Norman continued, taking a deep breath. “So - all living things have, uh, an energy, right? Lili used to describe it as a ‘mental presence’, I think - I’m not sure. And - ghosts, they  _ also _ have this energy, except - I dunno, it’s on a different...  _ layer _ . That’s why most psychics can’t see ghosts, and why I can’t read minds and stuff. It’s like radios tuned in to different wavelengths.”

He turned on his heel, restless as the pieces started to come together. “I could  _ sense _ the thing in the forest, whatever it was. That meant it had this ghost energy, in - some way or another. But it definitely  _ wasn’t _ a ghost.”

“So, it was undead?” Mabel piped up. “Like a zombie?”

Norman shook his head. “I’ve met zombies before. This was  _ different _ . It wasn’t just a ghost inhabiting a body, it…” He paused, and furrowed his brow. “I think part of it was still  _ alive _ .”

 

Mabel was tipping her head to one side, deep in thought. “That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense,” she said slowly, and Norman groaned.

“I know,” he said, one hand coming up to grasp his temples, “but - that’s the only thing I can think of to explain it. There was this weird… interference when I tried to sense it, this static. It was like it was fighting itself.”

He slumped down on the bed, closing his eyes. Across from him, Mabel gave a small sigh, and he could hear the shifting of sheets.

“Well, whatever it was,” she said, “at least it was dead enough for you to get through to it.”

Norman hummed in agreement. When he sat up and opened his eyes, Mabel was facing him, but it seemed like she couldn’t quite meet his gaze.

“Listen,” she began, “I -”

Then she stilled. Something had caught her eye on her laptop screen. It was at an angle where Norman couldn’t see it, but as she frantically pulled it towards herself he could see her eyes widen and her breath hitch.

“It’s Violet,” she said. “Violet Strauss. She wants to meet with us. Today.”

  
  


They had, Mabel explained from the passenger seat as Norman once again drove through the twisting Idaho roads, already been driving towards Strauss’ manor.

“Well, more or less,” she said with a shrug. “When we left Spokane, I wasn’t looking at a map, obviously, but I knew which direction it was in - more or less. It should only take us an hour or two to get there, depending on traffic.”

“I guess you were pretty confident she’d get back to us,” Norman said with a tip of his head. He didn’t take his eyes off the road, but out of the corner of his eye he could see her shift.

“No,” she said after a moment, “but it was the only lead we had.”

 

The miles went by quickly and smoothly, and the Strauss manor, when it finally emerged over the treeline, was unmistakeable. A side road led through neatly sculpted hedges to a huge, sloping drive, with the manor spread at the top in red brick and white trim. It had that kind of picture-looking quality to it, Norman thought - like something you’d see in a postcard or a movie set, immaculate and utterly fake. The car crawled up the drive and into a wide gravelled parking lot. There were a few other cars dotted around, but most of the spaces seemed to be empty.

 

The front doors were huge, looming slabs of black wood and banded iron. As they stepped up to them, Norman, in his scuffed denim and worn-out sneakers, couldn’t help but feel out of place.

“Should we knock?” he whispered to Mabel, who rolled her eyes in response.

“She’s expecting us,” she said, reaching up to one of the heavy door knockers to give three low, booming knocks. “Besides,” she added in a low tone, catching Norman’s worried gaze, “we’re supposed to be students.”

“I  _ am _ a student,” Norman said, a little indignantly. Mabel beamed at him.

“Exactly!”

Norman dropped the subject as one of the huge wooden doors swung back, and they were beckoned inside.

 

-

 

It was like they’d stepped into a period drama.

The foyer of the great mansion was wide and ornate, and impeccably kept. Their footsteps echoed off the gleaming marble floor as the two of them were led into the room by a butler in a crisp coat. A huge set of stairs swept up the left hand wall, and at the top was a painting Mabel recognised from one of the web pages she’d seen; a portrait of Antonia Strauss, two or three times larger than life. Mabel wondered if the painting was still in the same place as it had been when it was first made, when Antonia was still alive; whether her likeness had been presiding over the comings-and-goings of guests to her vast estate for as long as the mortal woman herself had not.

 

The butler informed them he was going to fetch the lady of the house, and excused himself up the gilt staircase with a bow, leaving the two of them alone in the foyer. Mabel spun slowly in place. The glamour was enthralling; her eyes were drawn up the smooth marble pillars to the ceiling, where gold and white arches with impeccable carvings wound between paintings of cherubs. Light was streaming through four high windows along from the door they’d came in from, edged with gossamer curtains. There were chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, each with a dozen or so bulbs. They weren’t needed during the day, but Mabel almost wished she could have seen them lit up.

“Isn’t this place amazing?” she whispered. When Norman’s response was slow to come, she glanced over at him. His body language was extremely nervous, shoulders hunched and arms brought close to guard his sides. He caught her gaze, and almost immediately looked away. Frowning, she stepped closer.

“Hey, is something wrong?”

“It’s…” Norman twisted his lips, a frown heavy on his brows. “I feel like we shouldn’t be here.”

That took Mabel by surprise.

“Norman,” she pressed, “what do you -”

 

There were footsteps from behind them, and then a voice rang out.

“Ah, you’re here.”

Violet Strauss was stood at the top of the stairs, framed against the huge oil painting of Antonia. Aside from her hair and her dress, she was the spitting image of her ancestor. Her gaze swept over the two of them, and as she slowly descended the stairs Mabel was seized with the urge to curtsey. She shook it off, instead drawing herself up and forcing her face to relax into a casual smile. Norman was fidgeting at her side, pinching at the hem of one of his sleeves as Violet came to a stop before them.

“You must be Miss Strauss,” Mabel said, holding her hand out. “I’m Emily. Thank you so much for agreeing to meet with us!”

For a moment she was afraid she’d be left hanging - but then Violet extended a palm, and they shook. Her hand was the texture of old parchment, slightly cool against Mabel’s own.

“It’s good to meet you in person,” Violet said with a nod. Her gaze fell on Norman on the sidelines, and Mabel saw her mouth twist slightly. “Although I wasn’t expecting  _ two _ of you.”

Norman started, looking like a deer caught in the headlights. “I’m, uh -”

“This is my friend, Norbert!” Mabel cut in, grasping his shoulder in what she hoped looked like a friendly gesture. “We’re working together on the project.”

Violet was silent for a few seconds, regarding ‘Norbert’ with a stern expression. Mabel felt her smile start to fade. “Um, I hope that’s okay?”

 

Another long, tense moment of silence - then Violet nodded. “Very well. I suppose it doesn’t make much of a difference.”

She turned, hem of her skirt swaying with the movement, and beckoned the two of them with a tip of her head. “This way.”

 

She led them down the halls of Strauss manor at a brisk pace, shoes clicking sharply against the tiled floor.

“You’ve come a long way from the Falls,” she called - Mabel tore her eyes away from a huge painting of a young woman in a glade.

“Yeah,” she said. “We’re staying over with relatives for a few days - near Spokane? And then it’s not too bad to drive from there.”

Violet gave a neutral hum. Then she said, “Your friend there doesn’t talk very much.”

Mabel saw Norman’s eyes widen slightly, and his gaze drop to the skirting board; but his voice was even and steady when he spoke.

“What people say when you  _ don’t _ ask answers a lot of questions,”  he said slowly. “Sometimes you learn a lot more by keeping your mouth shut.”

Violet slowed her pace, just slightly, and turned her head back enough that Mabel could see the sliver of a smile on her worn face.

“You  _ are _ an interesting bunch,” she said, and as she swept down the corridor Mabel was left wondering what exactly she’d meant.

 

They were led into a tall, airy room with a table and chairs in the center. Tea had been prepared, and Mabel graciously took the offered cup as she sat down. The china was exquisite, and she tried to concentrate on not fumbling it as Violet poured three cups from a matching teapot. When she was done, she placed the teapot back in the center of the table and leant forward, perching her elbows on the edge of the table and loosely steepling her fingers.

“Let’s dispense with the pleasantries, then,” she said, voice calm but stern. “You’re here after the Engine, aren’t you?”

 

Mabel felt the cup start to slip from her grasp in shock. She grabbed it with both hands to steady it, trying not to let the tension show in her face, her body language. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Norman giving her a worried look.

“I was almost ready to write it off as a coincidence,” Violet continued, her sharp gaze unblinking. “And to your credit, you play the enthusiastic schoolgirl very well. But there was no mistaking it as soon as you walked through these doors.”

She drew back, and Mabel had the sudden realisation that she knew where this was going.

“The other Pines child wanted the same thing,” Violet said. “I’d had my suspicions ever since you signed that email, but seeing your face - there’s no mistaking it. Twins, I assume?” she added. “Identical?”

Mabel’s head was spinning. Normally she’d flinch at that suggestion - it led to a lot of very awkward questions - but any such notion was swept under a deluge of other emotions.

“Yes,” she said, trying to find the most pressing question of the dozens that had emerged. “I - my brother was here?”

“About a month or so ago, yes. Although I must say, young Mason was not nearly as agreeable as you; he even refused his tea!”

Mabel was silent for a moment, fighting to hold Violet’s piercing gaze. Then the older woman’s expression softened slightly, and she made a sound that might even have been a laugh.

“Don’t look so worried, girl,” she said, folding one hand over another. Mabel saw the glint of a signet ring on her finger. “I’m not going to reprimand you. I understand the need for discretion in this matter better than you might think.”

 

Mabel let out a breath that she hadn’t realised she was holding, and forced her shoulders straight.

“What did -  _ Mason _ ask when he visited?” she inquired. “That’s… the  _ real _ reason why we came. He disappeared suddenly, about two months ago. Our only clue is that we know he was after Gueverre’s artifacts. We hoped that if we followed that trail, we’d eventually find him.”

Violet nodded solemnly.

“You’re on the right track, then,” she said. “The Orrery that Gueverre built for my family contains a hidden code - a cipher written around its disc. He was asking whether I had any documents that might have helped him translate it.”

“Did you?” Mabel asked, and Violet pursed her lips.

“As a matter of fact, yes. There were some old letters from Gueverre in the library that held snippets of the code. I’m afraid he took them with him, though.”

Mabel hoped she didn’t look visibly disappointed. “That’s fine. Was there anything else?”

“He also wanted to know if I knew the locations of any of the other three artifacts,” Violet replied. “They’re quite hard to track down, as it happens. Now, I make it no secret that I don’t wish anything to do with this entire mess - that’s why I donated the Orrery in the first place. I certainly don’t make it my business to keep track of any of the others.”

She took a delicate sip of her tea, and when the cup lowered there was a smirk on her lips.

“But by an unusual happenstance, an old friend recently wrote to me about an auction in Salt Lake City at which the Evernorth Lodestone supposedly changed hands.”

 

Mabel’s eyes widened.

“Do you know who bought it?” she blurted. Violet quirked an eyebrow.

“A private buyer. I can’t tell you any more than that, I’m afraid,” she said, raising her teacup again. “Businesses that deal in  _ these kinds _ of objects tend to value their clients’ privacy.”

Mabel deflated somewhat. For a few moments, there was silence save for the sound of Violet drinking her tea. Mabel glanced towards Norman - he seemed to be deep in thought about something, hands bunched in the fabric of his jeans and eyes narrow in a frown.

 

“ _ But _ ,” Violet continued, breaking the silence, “I can give you the same information I gave your brother - the address of the auction house and the name of the auctioneer. It’s standard practise to keep a photographed log of everything that passes through. Maybe that will help. Besides,” she added after a moment, “you seem like a resourceful pair. If you keep your wits around you, I’m sure you can track down the buyer somehow.”

“That’d be a big help,” Mabel said gratefully. “Thank you.”

 

Norman was still wearing a concerned expression. He shifted in his seat, eyes darting between Mabel and Violet, and finally spoke up:

“There’s - still something that’s bothering me.”

Violet glanced at him over the rim of her teacup.

“When we went to check out the orrery at the museum,” he continued, “there - there must have been someone keeping an eye on us. We got a visit from a ‘guard’ at our hotel the day after.” He dropped his gaze, running his thumb over his knuckles. “They looked, uh - pretty serious.”

He took a breath, then straightened up, looking Violet dead in the eyes with fierce conviction. “So I don’t want to accuse you, but I need to know. Did you set that up? Are you the one keeping tabs on the orrery?”

 

Slowly, Violet lowered her teacup. Her body language was as poised and graceful as ever, but as Mabel watched her face closely, that polished veneer she’d been maintaining for the whole time began to crack.

“No,” she said haltingly. “No, that wasn’t me.”

Norman nodded pensively.

“Okay,” he said. “Good.”

 

* * *

 

“What’cha working on?”

Wybie slid his headphones off and craned his neck up as Coraline slid one arm over the back of his chair.

“It’s the EM data from the Groaner encounter,” he said, indicating one of the coloured lines on his laptop screen. “It was an afterthought to check this, but - actually, it’ll be quicker if I show you.”

He leant forward again, scanning his mouse across the screen to pull up a second window. “Ok, so I synced the timestamps up with the footage we got,” he said, fingers clattering as the video from last night came into view. “So this is as it’s approaching the trap… everything looks normal - and then  _ bam _ .”

“We’ve watched that footage over and over,” Coraline said dully. “Everything after the trap going off is garbage.”

“I know, but - look here!” Wybie rewound the video, then jabbed his finger at the screen. “The EM readings spike as soon as it starts glitching out.”

 

That did manage to catch Coraline’s attention. She drew up a chair next to him, cupping her chin in her palm as she watched the footage replay with a frown.

“That’s weird,” she said. “This was just your pocket reader, right?”

“Yeah,” Wybie sighed. “It’s too bad I didn’t think to set one up next to the trap - since the footage was scrambled, that at least would have given us  _ something _ to work with. The reader in my pocket was too far away to pick up anything useful - I’ve been trying to amplify and clean up the signal as best I could, but no dice. As is, we only know that there was  _ some _ sort of spike.”

“Could be why the footage was fried in the first place, right?” Coraline asked, tipping her head. “Those cameras have some pretty sensitive electronics in them.”

“Dunno,” Wybie grumbled. “It seems a likely suspect, but there’s too many unknowns here to really be sure. We need something more to go on, but this thing isn’t gonna fall for the same trap twice, so I really don’t know what we should try next.”

 

Coraline stood up from her chair, putting one hand on her hip. “I know what  _ you _ need to try, at least - taking a break from all this and relaxing for once.”

Wybie shut the lid of his laptop with a snap and turned to here. “C’mon, Jonesey, this is serious -”

“Well, so am I! We’ve been cooped up in this apartment for way too long. I’m starting to get cabin fever, and your eyes are gonna go square if you spend any more time looking at that screen.” Coraline gestured at the space around her. “We should get out! Go to a few bars, maybe have some drinks, just -  _ forget _ about work for a bit.”

Wybie scratched the back of his neck, sizing up her request. “I guess a break  _ does _ sound pretty nice,” he admitted. “I wouldn’t mind seeing more of Cedar Falls, either.”

Coraline flashed him a grin. “Besides,” she added, “it’s a student town - so if all else fails, we can probably find somewhere that does cheap beer.”

 

Twenty minutes later, they were walking down main street, shivering and laughing as the chill night breeze nipped at their faces. Wybie didn’t believe in dressing up just for a night on the town, but he’d at least changed out of his sweatpants into something a little more presentable. Coraline was in jeans and flannel, close enough to her usual work gear that Wybie couldn’t help but wonder if she was spoiling for a bar fight.

“Are you wearing a new cologne?” she asked as they turned a corner into a brightly-lit plaza. He was, as it happened. A lot of the things they encountered had a very keen sense of smell, so scent was something you had to be very careful about. That meant that wearing anything perfumed became a special luxury for off-days. He turned his shirt collar out, and Coraline got in close for an appreciative sniff.

“It’s got citrus and dragon’s blood resin,” he said. “Some similar notes to a traditional cologne, but with kind of an earthier undertone.”

“I like it,” Coraline decided. “Kind of tangy.”

 

They stopped at the third bar they came to, deciding it was crowded enough to be worth a look-in. It didn’t have much character, but the decor was fairly inoffensive and the drinks were priced reasonably enough. They managed to squeeze onto a small table by the wall, and as Coraline went up to order Wybie stayed, listening to the tinny jukebox play Tom Jones over the chatter of the crowd.

His hand strayed to his pocket, fingers closing around the small EM reader - the one he’d been tinkering with earlier. He wasn’t really sure why he’d brought it with him, in all honesty. It had almost been automatic, tucking it into his trousers as he’d passed it on the kitchen table back at the apartment. He turned it over in his palm thoughtfully. Maybe he’d been secretly hoping it would bring him some kind of breakthrough, almost like a good luck charm?

 

Two glasses clinked down on the table, and he looked up to see Coraline giving him a sour look.

“We agreed this was a  _ break _ from work,” she chided as she sat down. Wybie put the device back in his pocket sheepishly, and reached out to curl his fingers around his drink, gin and tonic in a tall glass.

“It is,” he insisted. “I just thought…” No defence was coming to mind. He took a sip of his drink, hoping that Coraline would drop the issue.

“Whatever,” she said, after a moment. “I just wanna make sure you enjoy yourself, y’know?”

Wybie gave her a loose smile. He didn’t consider himself a workaholic by any stretch of the imagination, but his brain was always ticking over, working out  _ something _ . It wasn’t an inability to switch off, he just hated feeling idle. Coraline, despite her criticism, was the same - even as she raised her pint glass to her lips, her eyes were scanning the bar, alert and watching the crowd. They’d picked up on each others’ quirks over the years - it was part of the reason they worked so well together.

“Cheers,” he said, lifting his glass; it met the rim of Coraline’s own with a resounding chime.

 

They lapsed into easy conversation, and as the level of his drink went down Wybie felt himself relaxing. Now that he thought about it, how long had it been since they’d had a conversation that  _ hadn’t _ been related to work, somehow? Like, a real conversation - the kind you had in your friend’s bedroom while you were both teenagers, lying on their bed and playing video games, or out in the woods on a summer’s night, looking up at the stars.

Coraline must have had the same line of thought, because she aprubtly said, “I missed this.”

Wybie tipped his head. 

“Missed what?”

“ _ This _ .” Coraline gestured between the two of them with both hands. “Spending time with you, y’know?”

Wybie couldn’t help but laugh. “We spend a ton of time together, dude,” he said. “We  _ live _ together. Some people would say that’s too  _ much  _ time.”

Coraline blew him off with a roll of his eyes. “You butt,” she said. “You know what I mean.”

Wybie shook his head with a laugh, because of course he did.

 

At some point Coraline went up to get another beer, and when she returned they sat discreetly watching the patrons of the bar shuffle back and forth.

“What do you think that guy’s going to order?” Coraline asked, jerking her thumb, and Wybie leaned back to look.

“He looks like a WKD guy,” he said after a moment, “but I think he’s with his friends - yeah, see that group in the back? So he’ll probably go for something more traditional and less white-girl, like a rum and coke.”

Coraline drew back in her seat. “See, I was gonna say cider,” she said. “They have one on tap here. Drinking on-tap makes it look like you know what you’re doing.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s complete BS, and you know it, Jonesey.”

 

The guy in question ended up leaving the bar with a tray of drinks, which meant all bets were off. Wybie turned back to the table with a chuckle, but as Coraline watched him go she saw something that made her expression darken.

“Don’t look now,” she said over the rim of her glass, “but I think we’ve got a creep alert at 7 o’clock.”

Wybie surreptiously glanced over his shoulder, scanning the bar behind him. “The one in the red jacket?” he asked, watching the guy in question lean over a girl seated at the bar. He couldn’t hear what was being said, but the guy’s friend gave a hoot of laughter, and the girl shrink into herself. Then the guy in the jacket reached forward to grab her shoulder.

Coraline was already getting up out her seat, but Wybie waved her down. “I should probably deal with this one,” he hissed. “You know how assholes like that can be.”

 

He slipped along the wall, making his way towards the entrance and then doubling back towards the bar. The crowd was enough to hide him as he approached, coming up behind the girl. The guy in the jacket had just said something to make his lackey give a leering chuckle, and the girl’s eyes were wide, darting here and there, looking for an escape.

“...I told you,” she was saying, “I really don’t -”

Wybie cut in.

“Hey, cuz!” he said brightly. “Sorry I’m late, it took us a while to find this place. Hope you haven’t been waiting long!”

He bounced his eyebrows at her once, meaningfully - then, hoping she’d gotten the hint, looked up at the two guys harassing her, as if noticing them for the first time. “Oh, hey. Are these, like, your friends?”

There was an awkward moment of silence.

“Actually, we-” the lackey at the back piped up, but Jacket-Guy elbowed him sharply in the ribs, and his sentence trailed off into a wheeze.

“We were just leaving,” Jacket-Guy grumbled. He threw Wybie one last, dirty glance. Wybie smiled pleasantly back. Then the two guys dropped their gaze, before shouldering past him and into the crowd. Wybie waited until he heard the door slam shut before relaxing.

 

“Sorry about that,” he said, taking a step back to give the girl some space. She shook her head with a roll of her eyes.

“No, I mean, thanks for the out,” she said wearily, tucking a ringlet of hair behind her ear. “Those jerks just couldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. Typical dude behaviour. No offence,” she added hastily, but Wybie waved her off.

“Hey, none taken,” he said easily. “I’ve got a table with my friend over there. If you want, you’re welcome to come sit with us for a while in case those assholes come back.”

The girl followed his finger over to where Coraline was sitting by the wall. She’d been watching the whole time, and gave a lazy wave. The girl thought for a moment, then grabbed the bottle she’d been guarding and slid from her bar stool.

“That’d be cool, actually,” she said. “Thanks.”

  
  


They introduced themselves, and the girl responded that her name was Tara and she was a student in town.

“The bars here aren’t usually too bad, but you still gotta watch out for creeps,” she said. Coraline solemnly nodded.

“Men,” she intoned, with the confidence she was delivering absolute wisdom that only comes when someone is at least two beers into the evening, “are bastards.”

Wybie gave a mock gasp. “You’ll hurt my feelings,” he whined, and Coraline reached across the table to smack him on the arm.

“You are the least bastardly,” she laughed. “That I will acquiesce.”

 

As the other two joked and laughed, Wybie leant back in his chair, throwing back the last of his drink. He wasn’t a regular drinker, but admittedly there was something comfortable about the alcohol softening the usual sharpness of his mind. He was wondering whether another G&T would be a sensible idea or not when he suddenly realised his pocket was beeping.

His first thought was that it was his phone - but that couldn’t be right, it didn’t sound anything like his ringtone. He wriggled in the chair, digging into his pocket to fish out - oh.

 

It was the EM reader. The small red LED on the front was flashing in time with the beeps, and above it the needle on the readout was quivering wildly.

Coraline must have sensed something was wrong, because she was leaning forward over the table, expression stern. “Wybie, what -?”

Wybie held the reader up, and alarm flashed across her face. “Why’s it doing that?”

“I don’t know,” Wybie said, “but we’d better -”

Something hit the window behind them, and it exploded in a shower of broken glass.

 

Wybie managed to fling himself under the table just in time. Hundreds of pieces of glass tinkled against it, followed by the  _ thunk _ of something much more substantial. There was the click and scrabble of nails against wood as it slid and tumbled off the edge, followed by a snarl.

Scrambling backwards on his hands and knees, Wybie squirmed out from under the table, rising to his feet at the same time as the intruder did. It was roughly dog-sized and dog-shaped, with a shambling, twitching gait as it paced. Its head swung towards Wybie, and its eyes were two tiny pinpricks of light.

It sprang.

Wybie grabbed the table edge and heaved. The table clattered onto its side, forming a barricade that the creature bounced cleanly off. There were shrieks and yells from the crowd, and Wybie could hear it snarling and chattering as it picked itself up again.

 

Coraline was on her feet, shoving Tara towards the doors.

“Out!” she yelled. “Everybody out, now! Front doors there, rear doors there - let’s move it, people!”

Wybie braced his shoulder against the table as the creature sprang again, and this time he could feel the wood buckle and splinter. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the stampede of boots as patrons and staff fled the building, screaming and jostling to squeeze through the bar’s narrow doorway. The creature, for some reason, seemed to be ignoring them. Instead, it backed up a few paces, before leaping at the makeshift barricade again with a yowl. This time, Wybie grabbed the central leg of the table and rammed it forward, and there was an earsplitting  _ crack _ as the table split in two.

Wybie dropped the destroyed table, looking at the long-limbed creature splayed on the floor - then up at Coraline. “What the hell do we do?”

 

Coraline seemed to have been caught by the glass; Wybie could see long rips in the sleeves of her flannel, pale skin and dark blood underneath. She glanced towards the doors, where people were still jostling to escape, and resolve settled on her face.

“We need to keep it here until everyone’s out!” she yelled, grabbing a chair and slamming it down on top of the creature. It screeched and writhed, pinned between the legs as Coraline shifted her weight onto it. “See if you can find anything behind the bar we can use to tie it down!”

Wybie nodded, scrambling across the glass-strewn floor and vaulting over the bar. Taps, buckets, various bottles and glasses - there had to be  _ something _ here he could use. His eye fell on the cleaning supplies.

“There’s some cleaning cloths and stuff here!” he yelled. Coraline was still wrestling with the creature; she yelped as it bucked under the chair, and there was exertion in her voice as she called back.

“How the  _ hell _ are those supposed to help?”

“We could - wrap up its jaws, or something,” Wybie floundered. Coraline yelled again as, with a sudden burst of inexplicable strength, the creature threw her and the chair off. It lunged at her, but she managed to switch her grip on the chair and, with near-perfect aim, smack the creature in a high arc to crash down on top of the bar.

“Well volunteered!” she called as it got to its feet, shaking its head, and locked eyes with Wybie.

_ Goddamn it. _

 

He tried to back up as it paced towards him, but stumbled - the bar was too narrow a space. The wooden handle of a sturdy-looking broom caught his eye, and he grabbed it, shoving the creature away as it snapped. Its jaws came down hard on the end, and between the bristles Wybie could see long, filthy teeth digging into the wood.

Its grip was strong, and it tossed its head, trying to yank the broom out of his hands. Wybie dug his heels in, grunting as he tightened his grip. He threw his weight to the side, and the creature went skidding across the top of the bar, its head smashing into the top edge of a fridge.

Stunned, it slackened its grip on the broom handle, tumbling onto the floor. Coraline reappeared at the other end of the bar, sliding into the narrow space.

“I’ll hold it down, you grab the cloths,” she instructed, bracing her knees across the creature’s chest and hips. It wheezed and twitched fitfully as Wybie stooped, twisting a handful of cloths into a makeship rope and tying them once, twice, thrice around its muzzle, before tying them tight.

“What the heck  _ is _ this thing?” he muttered, as he brought its legs together. The limbs were strangely distorted, and felt uncomfortably damp; touching them made his skin crawl. The creature was hard to look at, like a magic eye picture, and the black of its skin and fur seemed to pulse in a strange way that reminded Wybie of the backs of his own eyelids. Over by the shattered window, he could still hear the EM reader blaring - and beyond that, the distant wail of sirens.

“They’ll be here soon,” Coraline warned as he finished hogtying its limbs; then, “How are we gonna transport this thing?”

Wybie’s eyes bulged.

“You want to bring it  _ back with us? _ ” he hissed, as Coraline cast about before grabbing a large bucket and bundling the creature into it. “Are you  _ nuts?! _ You’ve seen how strong it is - and if it is what I  _ think _ it is, then some flimsy trap or cage isn’t going to be able to hold it.”

“I know,” Coraline said, hefting the bucket by its handle. She met Wybie’s gaze. “But we have something that  _ can _ .”

Wybie blinked. Then he stood, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Sometimes,” he said wearily, “I think I should have chosen a different career path.”

 

* * *

  
  


There were footsteps approaching, smooth and deliberate. 

Ford turned, slowly, watching the figure as they came into view. They were dressed in the company uniform, but something about their poise made him hesitate. They had the lanky build of a young adult, and in the darkness of the warehouse it took a moment for him to recognise the face and put two and two together. Stan beat him to it.

“Goggles," he said with a humourless smirk. "Huh. How's working for the feds treatin ya, kid?"

"Stan," Razputin nodded, his tone clipped, professional. "Ford. You both know why I'm here."

Ford raised his hands slowly. "I heard rumours of an agent infiltrating this place. That's you, isn't it? We both want the same thing here."

"That’s rich coming from a criminal. I don’t know what kind of vigilante justice you think you’re trying to pull," Raz retorted, eyes narrow, "but it ends here."

"Open your eyes, boy!" Ford spat. "You know there’s something going on here! Something your organisation has been hiding from you.”

Raz shook his head. “You’re  _ criminals _ ,” he repeated.

”You’re smart enough to have figured it out,” Ford continued, “but dumb enough to not question it! Come  _ on _ , use that brain of yours for something other than popping heads! Are you really willing to just be a pawn in all this?"

"I've heard enough," Raz hissed. His hand went to his pocket, pulling out a blank card. Its surface swam, ink bleeding onto it like it was underwater to reveal the Psychonauts emblem - his badge. "Stanley and Stanford Pines, by order of the Psychonauts, the two of you are under arr-"

 

Somewhere in the warehouse, an alarm sounded.

Raz stilled, composure shattered for just a second; the whites of his eyes were bright in the gloom of the warehouse.

"That's not right -" he said haltingly, "there shouldn't -"

Suddenly he caught himself, and straightened up, pocketing his badge and giving Stan and Ford an icy glare.

"This isn't over," he said. Then his outline blurred, fuzzing into static: Ford blinked, and he was gone.

"Damned espers," he muttered, as a yell echoed through the warehouse, followed by the sound of boots on concrete. He grimaced, and turned to his brother. "We should make ourselves scarce."

Stan hesitated, glancing at the crate. “What about -”

“No time!” Ford grabbed the sleeve of his jacket insistently.

 

The security cameras came back online just in time for Raz to see the rear exit door of the warehouse slide shut. Moments later, the camera’s view was filled with the squadron of armed guards. He watched through the technoclairvoyant link as they swept the area before spreading out.

They must have thought the two intruders would have still been in the warehouse. Ordinarily, that  _ would _ have been the case - the doors were all keyed to double-lock in case of an alarm. But Raz had skimmed the files - screw it, he’d  _ seen _ Stan and Ford in action. A locked door was no obstacle.

 

With a sigh, he let his hand drop from the cables, allowing his senses to flood back into his body. He pushed down the flare of annoyance that Stan and Ford had got away - the alarm had been raised, and if he was found here he’d have much bigger things to worry about.

He put the panel back against the wall, and crossed to the high window on the other side of the break room. The lock was dodgy - he’d found that out his second or third day here - and with a little persuasion it eagerly swung open. He leapt, grabbing the lip and swinging himself through in a single, practised motion. Then he was off, the navy blue of his uniform melting into the night.

 

* * *

  
  


It wasn’t until he’d leapt into the car, Stan sliding in next to him behind the wheel, and they’d pulled out onto the freeway, that Ford allowed himself to relax.

The night’s getaway vehicle was an unassuming city car; a shabby two-door four-seater, with a modest engine unsuited to the paces Stan was currently putting it through. Ford didn’t more than glance at the speedometer (80 and climbing) before reaching into an inner pocket of his coat. He had better things to worry about.

The locator device was about the size and shape of an old flip-phone. Ford extended the antenna from the top, and jostled the device with the butt of his palm to coax the screen to life.

SCANNING… read the text across the screen, in a jagged green font: then, SIGNAL ACQUIRED. A moment later, the text vanished, replaced by a blinking red dot and a set of GPS coordinates.

 

Ford huffed a sigh of relief, allowing a tired grin to spread across his features. Stan must have noticed, because he glanced over, one eyebrow cocked.

“So, Plan B?” he asked. Ford nodded.

“Plan B.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hit a roadblock on this chapter, but recently had a surge of inspiration for the bar scene, which gave me enough wind in my sails to finish it. less proofread than usual because i wanted to get it out. i think it's a decent chapter all around though!
> 
> more players enter the fray! the last-but-one scene with the stans and raz i've actually had written since the fic's inception, so i'm excited to finally commit it to print. what are all of those scallawags up to? we'll just have to wait and see...
> 
> (also, it's worth noting since i'm never explicit about ages: all of the kids in this fic are 18 or over! notably, Coraline and Wybie are both old enough to buy alcohol at a bar. it's all good here, folks!)


End file.
